Taming The Id and Strengthening The Ego

Taming
the Id and Strengthening the Ego

From Cursing the Darkness to Lighting a Candle
Martha Stark, MD
Copyright 2015 Martha Stark, MD

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Table of Contents
Introduction
PART ONE Where Id Was, There Shall Ego Be
A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Therapeutic Action
Where Defense Was, There Shall Adaptation Be
The Complementarity of Defense and Adaptation
From Defensive Reaction to Adaptive Response
An Evolutionary Process
Processing and Integrating Stressful Experiences
Taming the Id and Strengthening the Ego
Freuds Horse and Rider
When Does the Ego Develop?
Fairbairns Conceptualization of the Endopsychic Situation
A Paradigmatic Shift
Irreversible Deletion or Reversible Transformation?
Primitive and Healthy Self-Protective Mechanisms
Therapeutic Agents of Change
Paul MacLeans Triune Brain

Evolving to a Higher Level of Adaptive Capacity
Optimally Stressful Therapeutic Interventions
The Stress of Gain-Become-Pain, Good-Become-Bad, and Bad-BecomeGood
Ego, Self, and Self-in-Relation
Ambivalent Attachment to Dysfunctional Defenses
Adhesiveness of the Id
Dysfunctional Systems Resist Change
Precipitating Disruption to Trigger Repair
Therapeutic Input
Challenge Against a Backdrop of Support
The Concept of Optimal Stress
Environmental Toxicities and Deficiencies
Bad Stuff Happens
The Paradoxical Impact of Stress
Healing Cycles of Defensive Collapse and Adaptive Recovery
An Untamed Id and a Weak Ego

The Unconscious
A Drive-Defense Model
Resolution of Structural Conflict
Threats From the Inside and Threats From the Outside
Broadening the Focus of Intrapsychic Conflict
The Capacity to Cope with the Stress of Life
Defenses Define Ones Stance in the World
Investment in Dysfunctional Defenses
Sobering Realities and Stressful Challenges
Price Paid for Dysfunctional Defenses
May the Force Be With You!
Ferreting Out Underlying Forces and Counterforces
Libidinal and Aggressive Cathexis
Neurotic Conflict vs. Conflicted Attachment
Rendering Conscious the Unconscious
Dawning Awareness of Inner Workings

Illumination and Analysis of Conflicted Attachment to Dysfunction
Refusal to Let Go
Ambivalent Attachment to Internal Bad Objects
Inertia and Resistance to Change
Unwitting Re-enactments
Importance of Recognizing Both Cost and Benefit
Relinquishment of the Defense
PART TWO Convergent Conflict

Conflict Between Anxiety-Provoking Stressor and Anxiety-Assuaging
Defense
Conflict Between Empowering Forces and Obstructive Counterforces
Feelings of Helplessness, Paralysis, and Victimization
Privation, Deprivation, and Insult
Anxiety-Provoking Recognition That Things Could Have Been Different
Convergent Conflict vs. pergent Conflict
Conflict Between Health-Promoting Forces and Health-Disrupting

Counterforces
Defusing Energy and Enhancing Awareness
From Unevolved to More Evolved
From Overwhelming to More Manageable
From the Need to Defend to the Capacity to Adapt
From Unhealthy Defense to Healthier Adaptation
Harnessing the Id and Refashioning the Ego
Horse and Rider in Sync
Efforts to Ease Anxiety
Dysfunctional Defenses
Cognitive, Affective, and Relational Approaches to Healing
Rendering the Defenses Less Adaptive, Less Necessary, and Less Toxic
PART THREE Optimally Stressful Psychotherapeutic Interventions

Here Too, Here Now, Once Again
Ever-Increasing Awareness
Anxiety-Provoking But Ultimately Health-Promoting Interventions
Objective Knowledge vs. Subjective Experience

10,000 Objective Judges vs. a Party of One
With Compassion and Without Judgment
Observing Ego and Experiencing Ego
Knowledge of Reality vs. Experience of Reality
Juxtaposition of Whats Known With Whats Being Experienced
The Creation of Cognitive Dissonance
Stress and Strain
Inborn Capacity to Self-Heal in the Face of Optimal Challenge
Defensive Collapse vs. Adaptive Reconstitution
Challenge When Possible and Support When Necessary
And Then Some
Destabilization and Restabilization
Psychodynamic Equivalent of Homeopathic Remedies
Triggering Self-Repair Mechanisms
The I Cant, You Can, and You Should Dynamic
Damaged-for-Life Statements
Compensation Statements
Entitlement Statements
Path-of-Least-Resistance Statements
Conflict Statements
Accountability (Conflict) Statements.
Work-to-Be-Done (Conflict) Statements.
Pain-Gain (Conflict) Statements.
Inverted Conflict Statements

Stress and Strain as a Fulcrum for Therapeutic Change
Listening to Ones Inner Voice vs. Silencing It
Optimal Stress as Providing Therapeutic Leverage
Holding On vs. Letting Go
Neurotically Conflicted About Healthy Desire
The Wisdom of the Body
With Adaptation There Is Always a Small Price Paid
Repeated Juxtaposition of Pain with Gain
Maintenance of Homeostatic Balance

Conclusion
References
Introduction
Freuds interest was in the internal conflict that exists between, on the one hand,
untamed id drives (most notably sexual and aggressive ones) clamoring for
gratification and release and, on the other hand, the defenses mobilized by an
undeveloped ego made anxious by the threatened breakthrough of those drives
conflict that will create neurotic suffering and interfere with the capacity to derive
pleasure and fulfillment from love, work, and play (Freud 1926).
Using as a springboard Freuds premises of drive-defense conflict as the
source of a persons difficulties in life and of the goal of treatment as therefore
transformation of id energy into ego structure so that primitive defenses can be
relinquished and conflict resolved Where id was, there shall ego be (Freud
1923), I will go on to broaden Freuds conceptualization of neurotic conflict to
encompass, more generally, growth-impeding tension between anxiety-provoking
but ultimately health-promoting internal forces pressing yes and anxietyassuaging internal counterforces defending no.
The aim of treatment will then become (1) to tame the id so that its now
more manageable energy can be redirected into more constructive channels and
used to power the pursuit of healthier endeavors and (2) to strengthen the ego so
that it will become both better able to cope with the multitude of anxietyprovoking stressors (internal and external) to which it is being continuously
exposed and more skilled at harnessing id energy to fuel actualization of potential.
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In essence, a tamer id and a stronger ego will enable the patient to cope with the
stress of life (Selye 1978) by adapting instead of defending Where defense was,
there shall adaptation be.
In the treatment situation, the therapist will offer psychotherapeutic
interventions specifically designed to precipitate disruption in order to trigger
repair (Stark 2008, 2012, 2014). To be effective against dysfunctional defenses
that have become firmly entrenched over time, despite having long since outlived
their usefulness, these therapeutic interventions must be optimally stressful. In
other words, they must be strategically formulated to offer just the right
combination of challenge and support.
More specifically, these ongoing interventions must be sufficiently
challenging that they provoke destabilization of the patients defensive structures
but sufficiently supportive that they then offer the patient, forced to tap into her
innate striving toward health and inborn capacity to self-repair in the face of
environmental threat, opportunity to restabilize at ever-higher levels of
functionality and adaptive capacity. In essence, the therapeutic action will revolve
around the patients working through the stressful impact of these anxietyprovoking, and therefore disruptive, but ultimately growth-promoting, and
therefore reparative, psychotherapeutic interventions.
The net result of inducing healing cycles of disruption and repair will be
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eventual relinquishment of unhealthy, rigid, unevolved defenses in favor of

healthier, more flexible, more evolved adaptations,; and, instead of having the
defensive need to curse the darkness, the patient will now have the adaptive
capacity to light a candle. Adaptation is, after all, a story about making a virtue out
of necessity.
Elsewhere (Stark 1994a, 1994b, 1999), I have elaborated upon what I
describe as the three modes of therapeutic action in psychodynamic
psychotherapy, approaches that are complementary and not in conflict:
Model 1, the interpretive perspective of classical psychoanalysis, emphasizes
cognition; its goal is to prompt the patient to explore her inner workings and
ultimately to evolve to a place of greater self-awareness so that she can make
more informed decisions about her life and become more master of her own
destiny.
Model 2, the corrective-provision perspective of self psychology and other
deficit theories, emphasizes affect; its goal is to offer the patient an opportunity, in
the here-and-now relationship with her therapist, both to grieve the early-on
parental failures and to experience symbolic restitution. As the patient is forced to
confront the pain of her grief, it is hoped that ultimately she will evolve to a place
of serene, albeit sober, acceptance of the disillusioning reality that the people in
her world were not, and will never be, all that she would have wanted them to be.
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Model 3, the intersubjective perspective of contemporary relational theory,

emphasizes authentic engagement with others; its goal is to offer the patient an
opportunity to play out, on the stage of the treatment, her unresolved childhood
dramas and ultimately to encounter a response different from what she had both
expected and feared. As the patient is confronted with the sobering reality of the
dysfunctional dynamics that she unwittingly and compulsively delivers into her
relationships, she will be forced to evolve to a place of greater accountability for
her actions, reactions, and interactions.
All three modes of therapeutic action involve transformation of
dysfunctional defense into more functional adaptation by way of the therapeutic
induction of healing cycles of defensive collapse and adaptive reconstitution,
whether the optimal challenge that precipitates the disruption is provided by (1)
cognitive dissonance (Model 1), (2) affective disillusionment (Model 2), or (3)
relational detoxification (Model 3).
More specifically, Model 1 involves transformation of resistance (a defense
against taking ownership of dysfunctional internal dynamics) into awareness (an
adaptation); Model 2 involves transformation of relentless hope (a defense against
confronting disillusioning truths about the objects of ones desire) into acceptance
(an adaptation); and Model 3 involves transformation of re-enactment (a defense
against taking ownership of dysfunctional relational dynamics) into accountability
(an adaptation).
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Later volumes will address Model 2 and Model 3, but the purpose of this
current volume is to offer the reader an opportunity first to understand how the
destabilizing stress of being optimally challenged by thoughtfully crafted
therapeutic interventions can jumpstart the healing process, and then to learn
about the variety of prototypical statements that can be constructed in order to
optimize the effectiveness and impact of the therapists optimally stressful input.
All such statements, rendered with compassion and without judgment, will
reflect a deep appreciation for the patients ambivalent attachment to her
dysfunctional defenses.
By focusing on the direct translation of theoretical constructs into clinical
practice, the latter portion of this book will serve as a reference guide. Numerous
specific examples will be developed to demonstrate the therapeutic power of
interventions strategically designed to locate the conflict within the patient and
not within the relationship between patient and therapist.
In other words, by highlighting the presence of conflict within the patient
between those growth-promoting forces pressing yes and those growthobstructing counterforces protesting no, the therapist will adroitly avoid placing
herself in the untenable position of being the one to give voice to anxietyprovoking but ultimately empowering realities that the patient herself really does
know to be true, although she would rather not.
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In effect, by speaking to the presence of conflict within the patient between

her adaptive capacity to attend to her inner voice of truth and her defensive need
to silence it, the therapist will be able masterfully to sidestep the potential for
getting locked into a power struggle with the patient, which can otherwise happen
when the therapist positions herself as the healthy voice of reality. If the therapist
overzealously advocates for the patients growth and change, then she will be not
only forcing the patient (made anxious) to protest her resistance to growth and
change but also robbing the patient of the opportunity to access her own healthy
desire.
PART ONE (Where Id Was, There Shall Ego Be) develops the idea that
the patient has a conflicted (that is, ambivalent) attachment to her dysfunctional
defenses because they both benefit and cost her. Effectively working through the
patients resistance will require of the therapist that she call to the patients
attention both the latters investment in having the defense, which fuels her
libidinal cathexis of the dysfunction, and the price she pays for refusing to
relinquish it, which fuels her aggressive cathexis of the dysfunction. The goal will
be to tame the id and strengthen the ego such that there will no longer be the
same need to defend, ultimately signaling resolution of drive-defense conflicts.
PART TWO (Convergent Conflict) elaborates upon the distinction
between divergent conflict, characterized by two forces that are independent of
each other, and convergent conflict, characterized by an anxiety-assuaging
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counterforce mobilized as a defensive reaction to the presence of an anxietyprovoking force (Kris 1985).
Although Freuds emphasis was on conflict between, on the one hand, sexual
and aggressive id drives and, on the other hand, defenses mobilized by an
undeveloped ego made anxious, my focus will be more on the harnessing of
anxiety-provoking but ultimately empowering forces such that once their energy
has been tamed, modified, and integrated, those forces, in conjunction with the
egos enhanced awareness of its inner workings, can be used to fuel healthy
pursuits and realizable goals.
PART THREE (Optimally Stressful Psychotherapeutic Interventions)
presents in some depth a number of prototypical therapeutic statements for
example, conflict statements, inverted conflicted statements, and path-of-leastresistance statements that will both challenge the patients defenses (by
speaking to the patients adaptive capacity to know the truth) and support them
(by resonating empathically with the patients defensive need to deny such
knowledge)..
Based on the principle that until a chronic condition is made acute, there
may not be enough impetus to jumpstart the process of healing, the therapist will
attempt to perturb the dysfunctional status quo by challenging the patient with an
attenuated version of the traumatogenic experience that had created the problem
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to begin with, thereby triggering the patients intrinsic ability to self-renew.

With her finger ever on the pulse of the patients level of anxiety and
capacity to tolerate further challenge and using any of the variety of optimally
stressful psychotherapeutic interventions within her armamentarium, the
therapist will be able to titrate the level of the patients anxiety. The therapist will
challenge when possible (thereby increasing the patients anxiety, destabilizing the
system, and superimposing an acute injury on top of a chronic one) and support
when necessary (thereby decreasing the patients anxiety and creating the
potential for adaptive restabilization of the system at a higher level of integration,
functionality, and balance), all with an eye to creating growth-promoting tension
within the patient between her dawning awareness of just how costly her
dysfunction has become, which will make it increasingly ego-dystonic, and her
new-found understanding of just how invested she is in holding on to it even so,
which highlights why it is still ego-syntonic.
As long as the gain is greater than the pain, the patient will maintain the
defense and remain entrenched in her dysfunction. But as the patient becomes
ever more impacted by her awareness of the discrepancy between her knowledge
of the cost and her experience of the benefit, the stress and strain created by this
cognitive dissonance will ultimately prompt her, in the interest of restoring
homeostatic balance, to surrender her dysfunctional defenses in favor of more
functional adaptations.
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PART ONE Where Id Was, There Shall Ego Be

Growing up is the task of the child, and getting better is the task of the
patient.
Throughout what follows, I will be suggesting that both the developmental
process and the therapeutic process are continuously evolving processes that
involve transformation from something that is less evolved (and more defensive
than adaptive) to something that is more evolved (and therefore more adaptive
than defensive).
A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Therapeutic Action

I have long been interested in what exactly it is that enables patients to heal
their psychic scars. These scars are the internal price paid for early-on traumas
never fully processed and integrated, traumas experienced usually at the hands of
their parents. Although belatedly, psychotherapy offers such patients the
opportunity to process and integrate these unmastered traumas. I have written
several psychoanalytic books that speak to what constitutes the so-called
therapeutic action (Stark 1994a, 1994b, 1999).
The conceptual framework that I have developed posits three schools of
thought:
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Model 1, enhancement of knowledge, is the interpretive perspective of

classical psychoanalysis, a drive-defense model that focuses on the patients
unmodulated drives and self-protective defenses, a model that offers the
neurotically conflicted patient an opportunity to gain greater self-awareness and
insight into her inner workings, so that she can make more informed decisions
about her life and become more master of her own destiny.
Model 2, provision of corrective experience, is a more contemporary
perspective, one that focuses on the patients psychological deficiencies, these
psychic scars the result of early-on absence of good in the form of deprivation or
neglect. This deficiency-compensation perspective is one that offers the patient an
opportunity in the here-and-now relationship with her therapist both to grieve
the early-on parental failures and to experience symbolic restitution. As the
patient makes her peace with the reality that the people in her world were not,
and will never be, all that she would have wanted them to be, she evolves to a
place of greater acceptance and inner peace.
And Model 3, engagement in relationship, is another contemporary
perspective, one that focuses on the patients psychological toxicities, these
psychic scars the result of early-on presence of bad in the form of trauma or
abuse. This third model of therapeutic action offers the patient a stage upon which
to play out, symbolically, her unresolved childhood dramas, but ultimately to
encounter a different outcome this time because the therapist will be able to
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facilitate resolution by bringing to bear her own, more evolved capacity to process
and integrate on behalf of a patient who truly does not know how. As the patient is
confronted with the sobering reality of what she compulsively and unwittingly reenacts at the intimate edge (Ehrenberg 1992) in her relationships, she will evolve
to a place of greater accountability for her actions.
In essence, we might say that maturity involves developing the capacity to
know and accept the self, including ones psychic scars (Model 1), to know and
accept others, including their psychic scars (Model 2), and to take responsibility
for what one delivers of oneself into relationship and, more generally, into ones
life (Model 3). At the end of the day, psychological health is a story about
awareness, acceptance, and accountability.
Where Defense Was, There Shall Adaptation Be

Well known is Freuds (1923) adage: Where id was, there shall ego be.
Using this premise as a springboard, I will be suggesting that Where defense was,
there shall adaptation be.
In fact, my contention will be that the therapeutic action of psychodynamic
psychotherapy whether the interpretive perspective of classical psychoanalysis
(Model 1), the deficiency-compensation perspective of self psychology and those
object relations theories emphasizing internal absence of good (Model 2), or the
intersubjective perspective of contemporary relational theory and those object
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relations theories emphasizing internal presence of bad (Model 3) always

involves the transformation of dysfunctional defense into more functional
adaptation.
More specifically, Model 1 will facilitate the transformation of resistance
(defense) into awareness (adaptation); Model 2 will facilitate the transformation
of relentless hope (defense) into acceptance (adaptation); and Model 3 will
facilitate the transformation of re-enactment (defense) into accountability
(adaptation). Awareness, acceptance, and accountability are all adaptations and
involve the working through of defenses reactively mobilized, as we shall later
discuss, either to protect the ego (from the exigencies of the id, the imperatives of
the superego, and the demands of external reality) or to protect the self (from a
bad object).
The Complementarity of Defense and Adaptation

So what exactly is the relationship between defense and adaptation?
Although defenses are less healthy and less evolved and adaptations are
more healthy and more evolved, both defense and adaptation are self-protective
mechanisms that speak to the lengths to which a system will go in order to
preserve its balance in the face of environmental challenge be that challenge
external or internal and be it psychological, physiological, or energetic.
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Defense and adaptation are actually flip sides of the same coin; defenses
have an adaptive function and adaptations serve to defend. As such, they have a
yin and yang relationship, representing, as they do, not opposing but
complementary forces. In fact, just as in quantum mechanics, where particles and
waves are thought to be different manifestations of a single reality depending
upon the observers perspective, so too defense and adaptation are conjugate
pairs demonstrating this same duality (both-and, not either-or).
Despite being flip sides of the same coin, however, defenses are generally
thought to be at the less evolved, less complex, less healthy, less functional end of
the spectrum, whereas adaptations are generally thought to be at the more
evolved, more complex, more healthy, more functional end. In essence, defenses
are low-level regulatory mechanisms, whereas adaptations are higher-level
regulatory mechanisms; defenses are automatic and are mobilized almost
immediately, whereas adaptations emerge only over time and are more evolved.
We defend to survive; we adapt to thrive.
More specifically, whenever a challenge is simply too much (that is, too much
to be processed and integrated), then the ego, in an effort to preserve its balance,
will mobilize a defense. These defensive reactions kick in almost instantaneously;
they are reflexive (knee-jerk), do not involve much aforethought, are automatic,
old standbys, habitual, generic, stereotypic, characteristic (same old, same old).
And if the child is repeatedly enough confronted with challenges that cannot be
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mastered, then her defenses will crystalize out, over time, as her defensive stance,
her standard way of reacting, a patterned reaction, her pattern of defense, her
modus operandi, her default mode every time she is confronted with something
that is simply too much to be managed.
As an aside: Whenever the therapist in a therapeutic intervention puts forth
the idea that perhaps the patient finds herself thinking/feeling/doing thus and
such, the therapist will usually be speaking to something the patient is thinking,
feeling, or doing that is defensive, reactive, knee-jerk in character.
On the other hand, if a challenge is not too much and can ultimately be
processed and integrated, then the ego, in an effort to preserve its balance, will be
said to have adapted. These adaptive responses require much more forethought;
they involve processing and integrating (digesting/metabolizing/assimilating) the
impact of the challenge. They only emerge over time and are more evolved and
more complex. Adaptations tend to be more flexible they are not reflexive but
reflective; not stereotypic or habitual but customized, individualized, and
personalized. They are not generic but specific.
In sum, defenses tend to be more rigid, unyielding, and unvarying. They are
like a one-trick pony or Johnny One-Note. Adaptations tend to be more
versatile, malleable, and plastic. We speak of the need to defend but the capacity
to adapt defensive need but adaptive capacity.
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From Defensive Reaction to Adaptive Response

The developmental and therapeutic processes replace a reaction that is
more knee-jerk with a response that is more considered: from defensive reaction
to adaptive response.
A prime example of defense: When the impact on a child of her parents
abusiveness is simply too much for the child to process, integrate, and adapt to,
the child may find herself defensively reacting by dissociating. Over time,
dissociation may emerge as her characteristic defensive stance in life whenever
she feels threatened.
A prime example of adaptation: When a child is ultimately able to master the
impact of her parents abusiveness (that is, process and integrate it), the child may
adaptively respond by becoming an advocate for the rights of her little sister and
of others whom she senses might be at risk.
Clearly there will always be a price paid for psychological defenses because
they are rigid and inflexible; and, by virtue of that rigidity and inflexibility, they
limit ones options and potential for growth. By the same token, because defenses
interfere with the harnessing of id energy for constructive purposes and
attainable aspirations and because they themselves require the expenditure of
energy for their maintenance, defenses are tremendously energy consuming and
therefore costly.
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As we shall later discuss, less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that there is also
always at least some price paid for adapting. Admittedly, adaptations are more
evolved solutions than are defenses. As such, there is benefit. But in adapting to
sobering realities (be it the development of awareness, acceptance, or
accountability), the individual usually ends up feeling a little sadder, less innocent,
more burdened, and less carefree. Robbing Peter to pay Paul but at least Paul
will then get paid.
An Evolutionary Process
The following are the various ways in which the transformation of defense
into adaptation can be conceptualized:
From id to ego
From id drive to ego structure
From drive to structure
From id need to ego capacity
From defensive need to adaptive capacity
From need to capacity
From defensive reaction to adaptive response
From reaction to response
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From defense to adaptation

I would now like to offer a few points of clarification with respect to the above.
What is the relationship between ego structure and ego capacity? Because
structures perform regulatory functions that enable regulatory capacity,
development of an ego with structure is tantamount to development of an ego
with capacity.
What is the relationship between a reaction and a response? If the impact of
a challenge has not, for whatever complex mix of reasons, been able to be
processed and integrated, then we speak of a reaction; but if the impact of the
challenge has been able to be more processed and integrated, then we speak of a
response. Id-derived reactions (that is, defenses) are more reflexive (that is,
immediate), and ego-derived responses (that is, adaptations) are more reflective
(that is, considered).
More generally, what is the relationship between id and ego? Ego psychology
(Hartmann 1958) is founded on the premise that the ego develops out of
necessity, that is, that it evolves as an adaptation to the exigencies of the id, the
imperatives of the superego, and the demands of external reality all of which are
environmental stressors (whether internal or external).
In fact, it could be said that adaptation is a story about making a virtue out of
necessity. Adaptation is a story about the ego in its struggle to avoid being
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overwhelmed, broken, or defeated evolving as best it can in order to be able to

manage the impact of the myriad of environmental stressors to which it is being
continuously exposed.
Processing and Integrating Stressful Experiences

Throughout this book, I will be suggesting that the ultimate goal of
psychodynamic psychotherapy is to facilitate the processing and integrating of
stressful experiences in both the there-and-then and the here-and-now, such that
the patient can adaptively respond (rather than defensively react), can mobilize
functional adaptations (rather than activating dysfunctional defenses), can adopt
functional ways of being and doing (rather than resorting to dysfunctional actions,
reactions, and interactions), and can demonstrate healthy capacity (rather than
manifesting unhealthy need).
By way of examples: If all goes well, the patient will evolve from whining and
complaining to becoming proactive, from cursing the darkness to lighting a candle,
from externalizing blame to taking ownership, from dissociating to becoming
more present, from feeling victimized to becoming empowered, from being
jammed up to mobilizing her energies in the pursuit of her dreams, from denial to
confronting head-on, and from being ever critical to becoming more
compassionate.
Expressed in the language of need and capacity: If all goes well, the patient
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will evolve from having the need for immediate gratification into having the
capacity to tolerate delay; having the need for absolute gratification into having
the capacity to derive pleasure from relative gratification; having the need for
perfection into having the capacity to tolerate imperfection; having the need for
external provision of good parenting into having the capacity to be a good parent
unto herself; having the need for external regulation of the self into having the
capacity for internal self-regulation; having the need to hold on into having the
capacity to let go; having the need to deny awareness of her investment in
maintaining her dysfunction into having the capacity to take ownership of her
conflictedness about moving forward in her life; having the need to put a lid on
her dysregulated id energies into having the capacity to harness those now better
regulated id energies to power her movement forward in life; having the need to
deny the reality of the objects limitations, separateness, and immutability into
having the capacity to accept, and make her peace with, those sobering realities;
and having the need to play out her unresolved childhood dramas in her
relationships into having the capacity to hold herself accountable for what she had
been compulsively and unwittingly re-enacting on the stage of her life.
Whether conceptualized as the transformation of defense into adaptation, of
dysfunction into greater functionality, of knee-jerk reactivity into more
considered responsivity, or of need into capacity, the ever-evolving result of the
working-through process of psychodynamic psychotherapy will be development
of ever-greater awareness, acceptance, and accountability such that the patient
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will be ever-better equipped to manage the myriad of environmental challenges to

which she will be continuously exposed over the course of her life.
Taming the Id and Strengthening the Ego

Freud (1926) formulates the goal of treatment as the resolution of internal
conflict between id drive and ego defense by simultaneously (1) harnessing the id
drives and (2) analyzing the ego defenses. The net result of both taming the id and
strengthening the ego will be a working through of the patients resistance to
awareness of her inner workings and a simultaneous tapping into now more
tamed and therefore more available id drives.
In fact, classical psychoanalytic theory is all about taming the id (by taming,
modifying, and integrating its unmodulated energies) and strengthening the ego
(by rendering conscious its internal dynamics through analysis, and ultimate
dissolution, of its defenses) all with an eye to resolving structural conflict and
freeing up energy to power the patients movement forward in life.
My understanding of the therapeutic action is very much informed by
Freuds psychodynamic formulations about the internal workings of the mind. His
conceptualization of both the developmental process and the therapeutic process
as a story about the transformation of id (energy) into ego (structure) so that id
and ego can work together collaboratively and not conflictually is one that I find
extraordinarily compelling. In what follows, however, my effort will be to
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translate Freuds time-honored, even if somewhat old school, theoretical

constructs into a more contemporary language that I hope will make his ideas
about the central importance of taming the id and strengthening the ego a little
more accessible and clinically useful for the modern practitioner.
Freuds Horse and Rider

In writing about the conflictual relationship between id and ego, Freud
(1923) likens it to the relationship that exists between a horse and its rider. He
suggests that the horse represents the id and its rider the ego. The horse would
like nothing better than to be able to run free, accountable to no one but himself.
His energy, however, is needed to fuel the progression of horse and rider. It
therefore behooves the rider to become skilled at harnessing the horses energy so
that the two of them can move forward as harmoniously as possible.
Once the horse becomes tamed and therefore better regulatable and its rider
becomes stronger and therefore more adept at regulating, horse and rider will
become better able to coordinate their efforts to create a collaborative, and no
longer a conflictual, relationship. Indeed, the defensive need to rein the horse in
will have become transformed into the adaptive capacity to give the horse free rein.
When Does the Ego Develop?

In what follows, I will first attempt to make as compelling a case as I can for
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why I think it makes more sense to conceive of the id as the psychic agency
responsible for mobilization of primitive defenses and of the ego as the psychic
agency responsible for mobilization of healthier defenses. I will also be suggesting
that a distinction be made not between primitive defenses and healthier defenses
but between primitive defenses and healthier adaptations.
Admittedly, however, there is a major problem with my conceptualization of
the intrapsychic situation as one in which it is the responsibility of the id to
mobilize primitive defenses and the responsibility of the ego to mobilize healthier
adaptations.
So, to continue the metaphor of the horse and rider, I will go on to change
horses in midstream by presenting a counterargument for why it might indeed
make more sense to conceive (as did Freud) of the ego as the psychic agency
responsible for mobilizing both primitive and healthier defenses.
But I believe that there is then a major conceptual problem with this latter
formulation of the intrapsychic situation as one in which it is the responsibility of
the ego to mobilize both primitive and healthier defenses.
Again, however, I am getting ahead of myself putting the horse before the
cart, so to speak!
So let me begin again.
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Freuds contention is that the task of the child growing up and of the patient
getting better is ongoing taming of the id and strengthening of the ego an everevolving working-through process that allows for a gradual harnessing of evertamer id energies by an ever-more-capable ego and the eventual transformation
of unhealthy defenses (like projection, denial, and dissociation) into healthier
defenses (like sublimation, humor, and creativity).
In other words, as the id becomes more manageable and the ego more
capable, the need to put a lid on the id (that is, simply to rein in the horse) will
become transformed into the capacity to harness those energies (that is, to give
the horse his head) to power forward movement. In essence, whether the
situation is one of a child growing up or of a patient getting better, the unevolved
need to mobilize primitive defenses to obstruct the flow of the id energy will be
replaced by the more evolved capacity to mobilize healthier defenses to facilitate
the flow of that id energy.
In contradistinction to Freuds way of formulating the intrapsychic situation,
however, my inclination is to conceive of a beleaguered and overwhelmed id as
having the defensive need to muster up whatever primitive defenses it can in a
desperate attempt to rein in the dysregulated energy and, as the child grows up
and the patient gets better, of a more mature and more evolved ego as having
acquired the adaptive capacity to mobilize healthier adaptations in the interest of
directing the now-more-modulated energy toward the fulfillment of constructive
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35
purposes, worthy endeavors, and realistic goals (that is, actualization of inherited
potential).
By way of examples: Earlier I had made reference to the idea that, as a result
of development and treatment, the defensive need for immediate gratification
becomes transformed into the adaptive capacity to tolerate delay. What I am now
suggesting is that this is tantamount to saying not that the egos defensive need for
immediate gratification becomes transformed into the egos adaptive capacity to
tolerate delay but rather that the ids defensive need for immediate gratification
becomes transformed into the egos adaptive capacity to tolerate delay.
By the same token, earlier I had made reference to the idea that, as a result
of development and treatment, the defensive need for perfection becomes
transformed into the adaptive capacity to tolerate imperfection. What I am now
suggesting is that this is tantamount to saying not that the egos defensive need for
perfection becomes transformed into the egos adaptive capacity to tolerate
imperfection but rather that the ids defensive need for perfection becomes
transformed into the egos adaptive capacity to tolerate imperfection.
Again, I think it makes more sense to conceptualize the therapeutic action of
psychodynamic psychotherapy as a story about Where primitive (id) defense
was, there shall healthier (ego) adaptation be (my words) than to conceptualize
the therapeutic action as a story about Where primitive (ego) defense was, there
36
shall healthier (ego) defense be, which would follow from what Freud
hypothesizes.
In other words, if a central tenet of Freuds theory is that there is first id and
then ego (a tenet that I wholeheartedly embrace), then it does not seem entirely in
keeping with that fundamental construct to go on to hypothesize that there is first
primitive ego defense and then healthier ego defense, especially when it is not
clear, from Freuds point of view, that there is even much ego present at the
beginning. I therefore believe that it is more inherently consistent to hypothesize
that there is first primitive id defense and then, as the ego comes into being and
gradually develops, healthier ego adaptation.
In sum: My choice is to propose that rather than primitive mechanisms
(mobilized by an immature ego) and healthier mechanisms (mobilized by a more
mature ego), there are primitive mechanisms (mobilized by the id) and healthier
mechanisms (mobilized by the ego). Furthermore, rather than distinguishing
between primitive defenses and healthier defenses, I find it more clinically useful
to make the distinction between primitive defenses and healthier adaptations.
Accordingly, both the developmental task of the child and the therapeutic task of
the patient then become a story about the gradual evolution not so much from
unhealthy (ego) defense to healthier (ego) defense but rather from unhealthy (id)
defense to healthier (ego) adaptation as id is transformed into ego, id energy
into ego structure, id need into ego capacity, need into capacity, defensive need
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into adaptive capacity, defense into adaptation.
Fairbairns Conceptualization of the Endopsychic Situation

Interestingly, there have been others as well who have begged to differ a bit
with Freuds conceptualization of the id as a story about energy and of the ego as a
story about structure. In fact, W.R.D. Fairbairn (1954) has his own particular take
on the endopsychic situation. For him, there is no id at all only an ego with its
own (libidinal and antilibidinal) energy. In essence, Fairbairns ego is a dynamic
structure with its own energy.
More specifically, for Fairbairn, there is only a split ego with both its libidinal
and antilibidinal (that is, aggressive) attachments to a split internal bad object (a
seductive exciting/rejecting object that has taken up residence in the ego
because it has been defensively introjected by the developing child in an effort to
rid the mother of her badness and thereby to preserve the childs relationship
with her mother uncontaminated by the childs rage). I will later be elaborating in
much greater detail upon Fairbairns brilliant conceptualization of the patients
intensely ambivalent relationship to her seductive objects as a story about this
splitting of the ego.
In fact, Fairbairns formulations about the patients conflicted attachment to
bad objects that are both loved (because they excite) and hated (because they
reject) deeply informs my understanding of the therapeutic action in Model 3
38
the contemporary relational model that focuses on the patient as ever busy
compulsively and unwittingly playing out on the stage of her life (and in the
treatment situation) her unresolved childhood dramas, the healthy part of this
repetition compulsion fueled by her desire to achieve belated mastery of the
early-on traumatic failure situation.
A Paradigmatic Shift
I hope that in the sections above I was able to make a fairly compelling case
for the idea that the id could be conceptualized as the psychic agency responsible
for the mobilization of primitive defenses prior to the egos subsequent
development and assumption of the responsibility for mobilization of selfprotective mechanisms.
One of the major problems with my formulation, however, is that if anxiety is
what prompts mobilization of defense (which is an idea that I wholeheartedly
embrace) and if only the ego can experience anxiety (which is also an idea that I
wholeheartedly embrace), then how can I now be advancing the idea that the id is
the psychic agency responsible for the mobilization of defense, albeit primitive?
On the other hand, Freuds conceptualization of the intrapsychic situation
makes sense only if we posit the existence of at least a rudimentary ego from
birth. Freud, who repeatedly emphasized the gradual development of the ego from
the id (Where id was, there shall ego be), was much less clear about whether he
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39
thought there was an ego present at birth. So if there are defenses from the
beginning but not yet an ego, how then can Freud claim that the ego is responsible
for mobilization of those defenses?
We must therefore assume either that the id is able to experience anxiety (in
which case I can make a case for the id as responsible for the mobilization of
primitive defenses and for the ego, once it develops, as responsible for the
mobilization of healthier adaptations) or that there is an ego albeit a primitive
one present from birth (in which case Freuds formulation would be more
accurate, namely, that an undeveloped ego is responsible for mobilizing primitive
defenses and a more developed ego responsible for mobilizing healthier
defenses).
So I am willing to concede. But, in order for our logic to have internal
consistency, we shall have to posit the existence of some ego present from the time
of birth at least a rudimentary ego that, in reaction to anxiety (please note my
use of the word reaction instead of response) would then be able to activate
defenses, albeit primitive ones.
I would still like to advance the idea, however, that we conceive of a more
evolved ego as able to mobilize not so much healthier defenses as healthier
adaptations. After all, in keeping with the paradigm advanced by Hartmann and
other ego psychologists writing in the 60s and 70s, if the ego, governed as it is by
40
the reality principle, is responsible for adapting to internal and external realities,
does it not make more sense to describe the developmental and the therapeutic
processes as involving the transformation not of primitive defense into healthier
defense but of primitive defense into healthier adaptation?
I still embrace Freuds contention that Where id was, there shall ego be but
I also find clinically useful the idea that Where defense was, there shall
adaptation be. Maybe, however, it really is an unevolved ego, (present, then, from
birth) that is responsible for defense and a more evolved ego (the result of
growing up and getting better) that is responsible for adaptation. And maybe it
really is, after all, an inexperienced rider (an undeveloped ego prone to reactions)
that defends and a more experienced rider (a more developed ego capable of
responses) that adapts. Fair enough. I am satisfied.
Parenthetically, however, is it not a bit of a misnomer for Freud (and for
me!) to be referring to the internal conflict that exists between id impulse and ego
defense as structural conflict when, although the ego is a structure, the id,
allegedly, is not that is, the id, according to Freud, is structureless?
To conclude my argument: I, for one, certainly understand why Fairbairn
would have decided to resolve things for himself by suggesting that there is no id
at all, only an ego with its own energy and, of course, with structure!
In any event, because id and ego are, after all, abstractions and not realities,
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41
there are no specific regions in the brain that neuroscientists can prove house
either an id or an ego. So no matter how a patients internal dynamics (and the
growth-disrupting, progress-impeding structural conflicts that constitute those
dynamics) are conceptualized, each practitioner can pretty much choose for
herself the formulation that makes the most theoretical and clinical sense to her.
What matters most is that whatever paradigm the therapist embraces, it will
enable her to frame her understanding of the options she has, as she sits with the
patient, about how she listens and how she then intervenes, the security of which
should then translate into providing her with many degrees of freedom to deliver
her very best into the treatment situation.
Irreversible Deletion or Reversible Transformation?

If we do posit as a given the fact that Where defense was, there shall
adaptation be, then several questions inevitably arise with respect to this everevolving process: Is defense transformed into adaptation? Is defense replaced by
adaptation? Once there is adaptation, does defense still exist? Or once there is
adaptation, is defense then gone for good?
I am here reminded of the interesting distinction, in the language of
computers, between the save function and the save as function. On the one hand,
when you save a document, only the most recent iteration is preserved and
everything that had preceded this save is effectively deleted. On the other hand,
42
when you save as a document, then both the old version and the new version (with
a different name) now exist and nothing has been permanently deleted.
So to reframe my question in the language of computers, when defense
becomes adaptation, is the defense saved as an adaptation (in which case the
defense cannot be retrieved) or is the defense saved as an adaptation (in which
case both defense and adaptation will be retrievable, depending upon the current
level of the patients capability)?
Perhaps these are semantic distinctions; but what seems most important to
me is recognizing that, with respect to both the child growing up and the patient
getting better, Where once there was primitive and unevolved, there is now the
potential for healthier and more evolved. In other words, once a patient has
achieved the capacity to adapt, she will no longer have the same need to defend.
On the other hand, it should also be noted that although there is now
something healthier and more evolved, there is always the potential to revert to
something less healthy and less evolved.
Primitive and Healthy Self-Protective Mechanisms

Please note that there will be times when I juxtapose unhealthy defense with
healthier adaptation. By this juxtaposition I mean to be suggesting that there are
unhealthy self-protective mechanisms (that is, defenses) and healthier self-
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43
protective mechanisms (that is, adaptations). Also I will sometimes juxtapose

primitive defense with healthy adaptation. Here, too, I mean to be suggesting that
there are primitive mechanisms (that is, defenses) and healthy mechanisms (that
is, adaptations).
But sometimes I will juxtapose primitive defense with healthier adaptation.
Although grammatically incorrect (like suggesting that a particular brand of cereal
has 7% more iron than what? one wonders), the reason I will be taking this
liberty is that I want to highlight the fact that although adaptations are certainly
healthier than the primitive defenses from which they derive, these adaptations
might not yet be truly healthy (like suggesting that somebody on a diet who has
lost 10 of her 30 pounds of excess weight is certainly thinner but still not thin).
Therapeutic Agents of Change

As noted earlier, I conceive of the therapeutic action as encompassing three
modalities: enhancement of knowledge within, provision of corrective experience
for, and engagement in authentic relationship between. The prepositions (within,
for, and between) further emphasize that whereas Model 1 is about what takes
place within the patient, Model 2 is about what the therapist does for the patient,
and Model 3 is about what takes place between patient and therapist.
Model 1 is a 1-person psychology (with the therapist, as neutral object,
focused on the patients internal dynamics); Model 2 is a 1-person psychology
44
(with the therapist, as empathic selfobject, focused on the patients affective

experience); and Model 3 is a 2-person psychology (with the therapist, as
authentic subject, focused on the patients relational dynamics).
Furthermore, whereas Model 1 involves the ego an ego that will become
ever stronger, wiser, and more empowered as a result of working through the
patients resistance to knowing the truth about the powerfully conflicted forces
within her, Model 2 involves the self a self that will become ever more
consolidated and more compassionate as a result of working through the patients
refusal to confront, and grieve, the pain of her disappointment in her objects, and
Model 3 involves the self-in-relation a self-in-relation that will become ever
more present as a result of patient and therapist, with shared mind and shared
heart, detoxifying the dysfunction that will inevitably arise at the intimate edge of
their authentic relatedness.
At the end of the day, as we shall shortly see, Model 1 is more cognitive,
Model 2 is more affective, and Model 3 is more relational, but there is, of course,
significant overlap among the three models. These three models are mutually
enhancing, not mutually exclusive.
Paul MacLeans Triune Brain

I am here reminded of Paul MacLeans (1990) formulations about the Triune
Brain: three evolutionarily distinct structures that are nonetheless thought to be
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45
interdependent and interactive with one another. More specifically, MacLean

posits the existence of (1) the cognitive neocortex (new brain) the top layer of
the cerebral hemispheres which corresponds to my Model 1; (2) the emotional
mammalian brain (limbic system) the hippocampus, amygdalae, and
hypothalamus which corresponds to my Model 2; and (3) the
visceral/instinctual reptilian complex (old brain) brainstem and cerebellum
which corresponds to my Model 3. Whether the therapeutic process goes from
cognitive to emotional to visceral/instinctual (top-down processing of
information and energy) or from visceral/instinctual to emotional to cognitive
(bottom-up processing of information and energy), the net result will be the
digesting and assimilating of environmental stimuli including, especially,
stressful therapeutic interventions and the evolving to a higher level of
integration, balance, and harmony.
Evolving to a Higher Level of Adaptive Capacity

In any event, as we shall explore in much greater detail later, the therapeutic
action in all three modes involves transformation of defense into adaptation by
facilitating the patients processing and integrating of stressful experiences, both
past and present. In other words, psychodynamic psychotherapy affords the
patient an opportunity, albeit often a belated one, to process and integrate both
unresolved early-on stressful life experiences (that, at the time, were never
adequately processed, integrated, and adapted to but were instead defended
46
against) and unresolved present-day stressful life experiences (that have not yet
been adequately processed, integrated, and adapted to) the net result of which
will be transformation of dysfunctional defense into more functional adaptation.
Importantly, present-day stressful life experiences that need to be mastered
will include not only stressful experiences that the patient is having in her current
life and in her current relationships but also stressful experiences that she is
having in the context of the relationship with her therapist. If the patient can work
through the complex mix of transferential feelings that she is having with respect
to her therapist, then the patient will also be doing some critically important, even
if long after the fact, processing and integrating of previously unmastered
traumatogenic situations experienced at the hands of her early-on caregivers.
Optimally Stressful Therapeutic Interventions

The therapeutic action involves not only working through the transference
(both negative and disrupted positive transferences) but also, more generally,
working through the stress of therapeutic interventions specifically designed by
the therapist to challenge the status quo of the patients dysfunctional defenses,
thereby destabilizing them enough that there will be opportunity, with ongoing
support from the therapist and by tapping into the bodys innate striving toward
health, for the patient to restabilize at a higher level of functionality and adaptive
capacity in the process relinquishing her defenses in favor of adaptations.
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47
If, over time, there are too many anxiety-provoking interpretations and not
enough anxiety-assuaging empathic interventions, then the cumulative impact of
this stressful therapeutic input may eventually compromise the health and vitality
of the individual. On the other hand, if there is just the right balance between
anxiety-provoking and anxiety-assuaging interventions, then the net result will be
the precipitating of disruption in order to trigger repair and the replacement of
unhealthy defense with healthier, more reality-based adaptation.
The Stress of Gain-Become-Pain, Good-Become-Bad, and Bad-Become-Good

As we shall see, more specifically, in Model 1, the therapeutic action will
involve working through the stress occasioned by the patients ultimate
experience of gain-become-pain (that is, working through the cognitive
dissonance created within the patient by her increasing awareness of the price she
is paying for remaining so attached to her dysfunction); in Model 2, the
therapeutic action will involve working through the stress occasioned by the
patients ultimate experience of good-become-bad (that is, working through the
disillusioning experience of having to relinquish an attachment to something in
which, by virtue of her relentless hope, she had been positively invested); and in
Model 3, the therapeutic action will involve working through the stress
occasioned by the patients ultimate experience of bad-become-good (that is,
working through the gut-wrenching experience of having to relinquish an
attachment to something in which, by virtue of her repetition compulsion, she had
48
been negatively invested).
Ego, Self, and Self-in-Relation

In other words, whether the focus is on dysfunctional defenses involving her
ego (for example, needing to protect her ego against having to know anxietyprovoking truths about her inner workings), her self (for example, needing to
protect herself against having to know disillusioning truths about objects she has
idealized), or her self-in-relation (for example, needing to protect her self-inrelation against having to take ownership of the toxicity she plays out in her
relationships), letting go of the dysfunction will be stressful because of the
patients conflicted attachment to it. Although clearly the dysfunction benefits the
patient in some way (or she would not be so invested in maintaining it), the
dysfunction does also inevitably cost her.

In essence, I am here suggesting that the patients difficulty relinquishing her
attachment to her dysfunctional defenses (and gradually replacing them with
more functional adaptations) speaks to her intensely ambivalent attachment to
those defenses an attachment fueled by both libido (because the defense must
satisfy in some fashion) and aggression (because the defense also frustrates in
some fashion).
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49
Adhesiveness of the Id
In fact, when Freud implicated the adhesiveness of the id as a major factor
contributing to the patients difficulty moving forward both in the treatment and
in her life, I believe he was speaking to the patients intensely ambivalent (id)
attachment to her dysfunctional defenses and thus her reluctance to relinquish
them in favor of more functional adaptations.
Dysfunctional Systems Resist Change

It is therefore easy enough to understand why it would be so hard (1) for the
Model 1 patient to relinquish her resistance to knowing the truth about her state
of internal conflictedness and gradually to replace that resistance with awareness
of just how attached she is to her dysfunction and of how responsible she
therefore is for perpetuating it; (2) for the Model 2 patient to relinquish her
refusal to know the truth about her objects and gradually to replace her relentless
hope with acceptance of just how powerless she really is to make the objects in
her world into the good parent she never had reliably and consistently early on;
and (3) for the Model 3 patient to relinquish her compulsive and unwitting need
to play out again and again, on the stage of her life, her unresolved childhood
dramas and gradually to replace those dramatic re-enactments with more
responsible ways of acting, reacting, and interacting.
In other words, it will usually be only with great effort that the patient (1)
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works through her defensive need to hold on to her ambivalently cathected

defenses and (2) replaces those dysfunctional defenses with more functional
adaptations as resistance is replaced by awareness, relentlessness by
acceptance, and re-enactment by accountability.
Precipitating Disruption to Trigger Repair

And so it is that stressful therapeutic interventions that provide just the
right mix of challenge and support should be a mainstay in the armamentarium of
any psychodynamic psychotherapist who appreciates that dysfunctional systems
resist change and that their inertia must be overcome if there is ever to be the
possibility of transforming unhealthy defense into healthier adaptation. The
therapist should be ever-busy challenging when possible (in order to initiate
destabilization of the dysfunction) and supporting when necessary (in order to
provoke restabilization at a higher level of functionality and adaptive capacity).
In essence, by suggesting that the therapist precipitates disruption in order
to trigger repair, I am here speaking to the therapeutic use of stress to provoke
recovery a principle that underlies the practice (well known in various healing
circles) of superimposing an acute injury on top of a chronic one in order to
mobilize the bodys intrinsic ability to self-heal.
Therapeutic Input
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Stepping back for a moment in order to put things into perspective: I have
long been interested in understanding how exactly it is that patients get better in
other words, what exactly it is that allows them to reverse underlying dysfunction
and thereby to advance from defense to adaptation. Over the course of the years, I
have come increasingly to appreciate something that is at once both completely
obvious and quite profound, namely, that it will be input from the outside and the
patients capacity to process, integrate, and adapt to its impact that will ultimately
enable her to get better. In other words, there must be both environmental input
(which will constitute the dose) and capacity of the system to manage that input
(which will constitute the reaction/response).
Challenge Against a Backdrop of Support

As it happens, however, more often than not it will actually be stressful input
from the outside and the patients capacity to process, integrate, and adapt to the
impact of this stress that will provoke recovery. In other words, usually it will be
not so much gratification as frustration against a backdrop of gratification to
which the psychodynamic literature refers as optimal frustration (Kohut 1966)
that will then provide the therapeutic leverage needed to provoke, after initial
disruption, eventual revitalization of the system at a higher level of functionality
and adaptive capacity.
Expressed in somewhat different terms, generally it will be not so much
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support as challenge against a backdrop of support (that is, optimal challenge)

that, by virtue of the anxiety thereby elicited, will then provide the impetus
needed to transform dysfunctional defense into more functional adaptation.
If the therapist offers only gratification and support and neither frustration
of primitive desire nor challenge to the patients maladaptive ways of thinking,
feeling, and doing, then there will be nothing that the patient needs to master and
therefore little incentive for transformation and growth. Therapeutic input,
however, that provides an optimal level of stress and anxiety (in the form of
interventions that offer just the right balance of frustration and gratification and
just the right combination of challenge and support) can ultimately provoke not
only reversal of underlying dysfunction but also optimization of functionality by
tapping into the patients innate striving toward health and inborn ability to selfcorrect in the face of environmental perturbation.
The operative concept here is optimal stress.
The Concept of Optimal Stress

It is in order to highlight the clinical usefulness of optimal stress to provoke
healing and revitalization of resilience that I am so boldly advancing the idea that
if the patient is provided with only gratification and support, there will be
insufficient impetus for transformation and growth. Let me now qualify that
rather bold assertion by saying that, in most instances, gratification and support
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53
(although certainly pleasurable in their own right) will not, on their own, be
enough either to reverse chronic dysfunction or to promote optimal health.
In other words, direct support is necessary but not always sufficient.
Therefore a more accurate rendering would be the following: Usually reversal of
underlying dysfunction and fine-tuning of functionality require therapeutic input
that provides not only direct support but also optimal challenge. Whereas the
therapeutic effectiveness of direct support is intuitively obvious, the therapeutic
effectiveness of a combination of support and challenge is more counterintuitive.
In truth, direct support and optimal challenge work in concert. Here, too,
there is a yin and yang relationship, with support and challenge demonstrating the
same complementarity to which I had earlier made reference in discussing
defense and adaptation. Whereas optimal challenge provokes recovery and
revitalization by prompting the system to adapt, direct support facilitates healing
by reinforcing the systems underlying resilience and restoring its adaptation
reserves, thereby honing the systems ability to adapt to, and benefit from,
ongoing stressful environmental input.
Environmental Toxicities and Deficiencies

I find it clinically useful to think in terms of those environmental stressors as
involving both the presence of bad and the absence of good in the early-on parentchild relationship (both too much that was bad between parent and child and not
54
enough that was good; trauma and abuse on the one hand, deprivation and neglect
on the other) toxicities and deficiencies that were internally recorded and
structuralized as psychic scars in the developing mind of the young child.
On the one hand, I define distortions (deriving from the internal presence of
toxicities) as negative misperceptions of reality; on the other hand, I define
illusions (deriving from the internal presence of deficiencies) as positive
misperceptions of reality. Both distortions and illusions are dysfunctional
defenses that result from inadequate processing and integrating of environmental
stimuli and that will become filters through which the patient then views both her
internal and her external world.
Bad Stuff Happens

Whether in the form of too much that was bad (trauma and abuse) or not
enough that was good (deprivation and neglect), stressful stuff happens. But it will
be how well the individual is able to process and integrate its impact
psychologically, physiologically, and energetically that will make of it either a
growth-disrupting trauma (when the impact of the stress is simply too much to be
processed, integrated, and adapted to) or a growth-promoting opportunity (when
the impact of the stress, although initially destabilizing, is ultimately able to
provoke restabilization of the system at a more evolved level of functionality and
mature capacity).
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55
Again, it will be how well the individual is able to master the cumulative
impact of the environmental stimuli, be they past, present, or transferential, that
will determine the outcome, that is, whether there is a plummeting of the patient
into further decline because the impact is simply too much to be managed or there
is an evolving of the patient to a higher level of functionality and resilience
because the impact is ultimately able to be mastered.
As we shall see, the villain in our piece will be traumatic stress, here defined
as stressful input that overwhelms and disrupts because it is simply too much to
be handled. The heroine in our piece will be optimal stress, here defined as
ongoing stressful input that ultimately strengthens by triggering healing cycles of
first disruption and then repair, first destabilization and then restabilization at
ever-higher levels of complexity, integration, and adaptive capacity.
In essence, whether the primary target is mind or body and the clinical
manifestation therefore psychiatric or medical, the critical issue will be the ability
of the patient to manage stress through adaptation.
The Paradoxical Impact of Stress

This book addresses the paradoxical impact of stress most especially on the
mind (here conceptualized as an open, self-organizing chaotic system) and
advances the idea that an optimal dose of stressful input (that is, an optimal
challenge), by tapping into the systems resilience and intrinsic ability to heal
56
itself, can indeed provoke modest overcompensation and a strengthening at the

broken places thereby enabling the patient to evolve from defensive resistance
to adaptive awareness, from defensive relentlessness to adaptive acceptance, and
from defensive re-enactment to adaptive accountability.
Healing Cycles of Defensive Collapse and Adaptive Recovery

What patterns will emerge as the patient, here conceptualized as a selforganizing system, advances from chaos to coherence and from disorder to
orderedness?
We could say that as the system evolves over time and in reaction/response
to environmental input, the properties that emerge will be dysfunctional defenses
(when the impact of the environmental stressor whether past, present, or
transferential cannot be processed, integrated, and adapted to and must instead
be defended against) and more functional adaptations (when the impact can be
processed, integrated, and ultimately mastered).
Alternatively, we could say that as the system evolves over time, the
property that emerges will be healing cycles of disruption and repair, recursive
cycles of disorganization and reorganization, defensive collapse and adaptive
reconstitution at ever-higher levels of complexity and capacity as the patient
reacts/responds either defensively (prompting collapse) or adaptively
(prompting reconstitution) to the ongoing stressful input. By way of her
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stressful interventions, the therapist will precipitate rupture in order to trigger

repair, and she will do this repeatedly.
Indeed, a patients journey from defense to adaptation involves progression
through these iterative cycles of disruption and repair as she evolves from chaos
and dysfunction to coherence and functionality.
As noted repeatedly throughout this book, it will be ongoing exposure to
environmental impingement (in the form of the therapists stressful
interventions) that will provide the therapeutic leverage the impetus for such
transformation, thereby enabling the patient, as we shall see, to extricate herself
from the bonds of her ambivalently cathected dysfunction and her infantile
attachments.
The ever-evolving psychotherapeutic process can be conceptualized as a
story about transforming unhealthy defense into healthier adaptation, whether it
be the transformation of (1) resistance to acknowledging uncomfortable truths
about ones inner workings into awareness of those truths (in the language of
classical psychoanalysis); (2) relentless hope and refusal to confront and grieve
painful truths about the object into sober acceptance of those truths (in the
language of those psychological theories that focus on the internal absence of
good); or (3) compulsive and unwitting re-enactment of unresolved childhood
dramas into accountability for ones actions, reactions, and interactions (in the
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language of those psychological theories that focus on the internal presence of

bad) (Stark 1999).
An Untamed Id and a Weak Ego

Model 1, then, is the interpretive perspective of classical psychoanalysis. It is
a 1-person psychology, the focus of which is on the patients internal
(unconscious/conflictual) dynamics dysregulated drives and dysfunctional
defenses mobilized by a not-yet-fully-evolved ego in an effort to
control/manage/regulate those drives.
More specifically, internal conflict is between a not-yet-fully-tamed id and a
not-yet-fully-evolved
ego,
which
is
also
described
as
intrapsychic
(structural/neurotic) conflict. Expressed in somewhat different terms, the conflict

is between an untamed, anxiety-provoking id and a weak, anxiety-ridden ego that,
in the face of environmental challenge whether that challenge be internal (the
exigencies of the id and the imperatives of the superego) or external (the demands
of reality, including the therapist) has a need to defend and not yet the capacity to
adapt.
The Unconscious
In the psychoanalytic literature, the unconscious has been variously
described as:
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(1) dynamic unconscious (Freud 1926), whereby anxiety-provoking psychic

contents are being defended against by an ego made anxious. In other words, the
dynamic unconscious refers to that which is kept out of consciousness to avoid the
experience of anxiety. Freud made the distinction between the dynamic
unconscious (which involves defense) and nonconscious processes (which do not
involve defense and can therefore usually be brought into awareness by calling
attention to them). What is nonconscious is not specifically anxiety provoking; it
just has not yet had occasion to be made conscious, that is, illuminated.
(2) unconscious organizing principles (Atwood and Stolorow 1984). These
pre-reflective principles are thought to organize or shape the patients
experience of reality; they serve as filters through which the patient gives
meaning to the world around her and to herself in relation to it.
(3) unthought known (Bollas 1989). This concept speaks to experiences that
are in some way known to the patient but about which she has not yet thought,
that is, experiences that are in some way known to the patient but are waiting to
be found. In other words, the unthought known speaks to early schemata (or
templates for interpreting the object world) that will then preconsciously
determine the individuals subsequent life expectations.
(4) implicit relational knowing (Lyons-Ruth 1998), that is, a form of
procedural knowledge about how to do things with intimate others. Implicit
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relational knowing is an intuitive sense of how to be with another.
A Drive-Defense Model
Classical psychoanalysis was fundamentally a drive-defense model, the focus
of which was upon conflict between anxiety-provoking drives and anxietyassuaging defenses these latter mobilized by an ego made anxious at the
prospect of threatened breakthrough of the id drives and their associated (idderived) affects.
Freud conceives of the therapeutic process as involving ongoing, gradual
taming of the id and ongoing, gradual strengthening of the ego by way of working
through the patients resistance both to input from the id and input from the
therapist, that is, resistance both to pressure from within (the inside) and
pressure from without (the outside).
In an effort to render the patients unconscious conscious, the classical
therapist offers experience-distant interpretations specifically designed to tap into
the patients dynamic unconscious by penetrating the egos resistance to
awareness of its internal dynamics. The patient is thought to resist the therapists
interpretive efforts in much the same way that she resists knowing the contents of
her anxiety-provoking unconscious.
Once exposed to the light of day by the therapists interpretations, however,
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the therapeutic process is thought to involve the ongoing processing and

integrating (that is, taming, modifying, and integrating) of not only the id contents,
accessed by way of the therapists interpretations, but also the interpretations
themselves, resulting ultimately in both a taming of the id and a strengthening of
the ego.
Resolution of Structural Conflict

The net result will be resolution of structural conflict by virtue of both a
tamer (less threatening) id and a stronger (less threatened and therefore less
vulnerable) ego, now better able to mediate between the pressures of the internal
world and the demands of external reality.
In other words, as a result of working through the anxiety-provoking
contents of the id, the ego will no longer have the same need to resist the id (or
external reality) by mobilizing its anxiety-assuaging defenses; so, too, as a result of
being reinforced by the insight it has acquired into its inner workings, the ego will
no longer have the same need to become defensive when challenged from inside
by the id and the superego or from outside by reality and the therapist. After all, a
tamer id means that there will be less to defend against, and a stronger ego means
that there will be less need to defend.
Again, the net result will be resolution of structural conflict, harnessing of id
energies for more constructive pursuits, and an ego better equipped to adapt to
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internal and external realities.

With ever-increasing awareness, the now-stronger ego will be ever-less
anxious, ever-less in need of mobilizing its defenses, ever-less conflicted, everbetter-able to direct the now-more-modulated id energies toward more
constructive pursuits, and ever-better-able to manage the demands of reality. In
other words, where once the ego would have felt the need to mobilize defense, it
now has the capacity to adapt.
In sum: Where id was, there shall ego be. Where unconscious was, there
shall consciousness be. Where pre-reflective was, there shall reflective be. Where
defense was, there shall adaptation be. Where reluctance to know thyself was,
there shall knowledge of thyself (or insight) be. Where resistance was, there shall
awareness be.
Threats From the Inside and Threats From the Outside

Importantly, the patients (the egos) resistance is to perturbation, challenge,
or impingement by both threatened breakthrough of anxiety-provoking id
impulses (and guilt-provoking superego dictates) and threatened intrusion by
anxiety-provoking therapeutic interpretations (and the demands of external
reality). In other words, the ego will feel threatened by challenges both from
within (the id and the superego) and from without (the therapist and the real
world).
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Broadening the Focus of Intrapsychic Conflict

To summarize: Freuds classical model involves the concept of intrapsychic
(structural/neurotic) conflict as a story about conflict between anxiety-provoking
id drive and anxiety-assuaging ego defense mobilized in an effort to ease that
anxiety, that is, conflict between untamed id and weak ego. In its barest bones, the
classical psychoanalytic perspective focuses upon illuminating the patients socalled structural conflict, that is, conflict between anxiety-provoking id forces and
anxiety-assuaging ego counterforces; this structural conflict is between id drive
and ego defense, that is, between id and ego.
I have found it clinically useful, however, to broaden the focus of the
therapeutic endeavor in Model 1 to include, more generally, the illumination of
conflict within the patient between any number of anxiety-provoking sobering
realities (or stressful challenges) and anxiety-assuaging defenses, that is, conflict
between reality (or stressor) and defense.
In other words, I have widened the scope of Model 1 to include exposing to
the light of day any underlying conflict between one force that is anxiety
provoking and another one (a counterforce) that is anxiety assuaging.
All kinds of situations can make the patient anxious (whether, to name a few,
dealing with untamed drives and their associated affects, being held accountable
for dysfunctional lifestyle choices, or being reminded of the work to be done in
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order to get better). What all such stressors have in common, however, is that if
their impact is too much to be managed, they will be not be processed, integrated,
and adapted to and will instead be defended against.
Whereas adaptations are more flexible, more reality based, and more
evolved, defenses are more rigid, less reality based, and less complex; and
whereas adaptations enable the patient to take in her stride the impact of stressful
realities as she journeys through her life, defenses speak to her inability to
manage the impact of those stressors and they will divert her progression through
life.
The Capacity to Cope with the Stress of Life

Everyone is being continuously bombarded by all manner of environmental
stressors psychological, physiological, and energetic in the form of both
presence of bad (toxicities) and absence of good (deficiencies). It is therefore
critically important that we be able effectively to manage the impact of these
stressful environmental challenges. In other words, we must be able to cope with
the stress of life (Selye 1978).
If we are able to process, integrate, and adapt to these stressors, then it will
be growth promoting. But if, for whatever complex mix of reasons, we are not able
to process, integrate, and adapt to these stressors and find ourselves, instead,
needing to mobilize defenses to protect ourselves against the impact of the stress,
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then it will be growth disrupting. There is no need for defense when we are able to
adapt; by the same token, we must resort to defending when we are unable to
adapt.
It could also be said that we defend against stressors but adapt to them; we
defend against reality but adapt to it. It is a variation on the theme of If you cant
beat em, join em. If you cant defeat a formidable force, then strategically
harness its energies to empower you.
Our defensive reactions will crystalize out, over time, as our modus operandi
a dysfunctional one, to be sure, but nonetheless our mode of operating. And the
defenses that we find ourselves mobilizing when stressed will come to define us;
they will become our signature.
Defenses Define Ones Stance in the World

What then is the relationship between the patients dysfunctional defenses
and her characteristic stance in the world? If a patient, when angered, defends by
retreating because she cannot process and integrate her anger, her characteristic
stance is said to be one of avoidance. If a patient, when upset, defends by
somatizing because she cannot digest and assimilate her upset, her defensive
stance is described as one of somatizing. If a patient, when confronted with the
reality that the object of her desire does not love her, defends by redoubling her
efforts to win him over even so because she cannot process and integrate the pain
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of her disappointment, her defensive stance is said to be one of relentless selfsabotage. If a patient, when feeling unloved, defends against the pain of her
heartbreak by compulsive binge eating because she literally and figuratively
cannot digest and assimilate her feeling of being unloved, she is described as
having an eating disorder. Finally, if a patient, when actually disappointed and sad,
defends against her awareness of those feelings by becoming angry, her selfprotective stance in the world may well become one characterized by reaction
formation.
In other words, when something (be it an environmental stressor, a sobering
challenge, a painful disappointment, a heartbreaking loss, an upsetting reality, an
uncomfortable feeling state, an impingement, a perturbation, or a disruption)
cannot ultimately be processed, integrated, and adapted to, the patient may well
become entrenched in a particular defensive posture that will then come to define
her characteristic stance in the world. This defensive armor will come to define
her; it will crystalize out over time as her characterological armor.
In essence, the fact that a patient has become reclusive or tends to somatize
or is ever in pursuit of the unattainable or has become eating disordered or tends
to use reaction formation speaks to the defensive armor she has developed in an
effort to protect herself from having to feel the pain or discomfort of things that
are simply too much to be processed, integrated, and adapted to. Instead of
processing and integrating the impact of the environmental challenge, the patient
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will find herself resorting to her by-now customary dysfunctional ways of

defending, and of being.
This is all by way of saying that a persons dysfunctional ways of being
signify her need to defend because of an impaired capacity to adapt.
Parenthetically, when either patient or therapist finds herself thinking,
feeling, or acting in a certain way, it usually suggests defensive and reactive, that is,
something over which she does not have complete control.
More generally, certain people will find themselves (1) withdrawing when
insecure, (2) holding back for fear of being hurt or disappointed, (3) suspecting
the worst when confronted with uncertainty, (4) sleeping to excess when
overwhelmed, (5) eating and drinking compulsively when feeling deprived, (6)
getting sick when too much is on their plate, (7) becoming relentless in their
pursuit of the unattainable when challenged with a no, (8) becoming addicted to
television and living vicariously when lonely, (9) acting out when stirred up
inside, (10) having temper tantrums when unable to get their way, or (11)
dissociating when in too much pain all of which speak to the inability of these
people to deal and represent knee-jerk reactions to anxiety-provoking situations
that are simply too much for them to handle.
In essence, the unhealthy patterns of behavior that develop are a story about
the patients defensive need to protect herself against having to deal with sobering
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realities, stressful challenges, disillusioning truths, and distressing affects that are
simply too much to be processed and integrated, too much to be mastered. The
unhealthy patterns of behavior to which patients resort when confronted with
stressful challenges in their lives and which, over time, come to define their
characteristic (dysfunctional) stance in the world speak to the unfortunate
triumph of defensive need over adaptive capacity, and of id over ego.
In other words, the patients dysfunctional behaviors speak to her defensive
need to protect herself against the myriad environmental stressors to which she is
being continuously exposed; the patients dysfunctional behaviors speak to the
failure of her adaptive capacity to master these stressors capacity that would
enable her to evolve to a higher level of functionality were she able to mobilize it.
In the place of adaptive coping strategies that are flexible and appropriate for the
occasion, there will be rigid and stereotypic defensive patterns of behavior that
become the patients dysfunctional signature.
To repeat: The various defenses unwittingly employed by the patient in an
effort to handle sobering realities and stressful challenges that are simply too
much for her to manage will come to define how the patient lives. In essence, how
she chooses to live her life will ultimately be a story about the defenses she
mobilizes (and to which she then clings) in order to avoid confronting anxietyprovoking stressors that are simply too much for her to process, integrate, and
adapt to.
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The patients dysfunctional defenses mobilized in the face of unmastered

experience will, of necessity, become the filters through which she then
experiences both her internal world and external reality.
Investment in Dysfunctional Defenses

What I am here suggesting is at once both totally obvious and profoundly
true, namely, that the patients dysfunction is there for a reason. The dysfunction
is there because the patient was exposed to experience early on that she was
unable to process and integrate. Had the patient had adequate support at the time,
she would not now need to protect herself in the dysfunctional ways that she does.
Nor would she be making the dysfunctional choices that she is in an effort, albeit
misguided, to manage the overwhelming impact of the stressors to which she is
being continuously exposed. Even as the therapist is recognizing the patients
need to be challenged so that her inertia can be overcome, the therapist must
never lose sight of the patients need for support.
Sobering Realities and Stressful Challenges

Clinically relevant sobering realities and stressful challenges include (1)
anxiety-provoking, uncomfortable, painful, or distressing affects, (2) disillusioning
truths about the object, (3) accountability for the dysfunctional choices the patient
makes to protect herself, (4) the price paid for holding on to those dysfunctional
70
defenses, and (5) the work to be done in order to let go of those dysfunctional
defenses. These realities and challenges, if too much to be processed, integrated,
and adapted to, will prompt the mobilization of dysfunctional defenses.
As an example of an uncomfortable or painful affect: Consider the patient
who is made anxious when confronted with the reality that she is very angry at
her husband. Let us imagine that she defends against the acknowledgment of just
how angry she is by telling herself that she is not so much angry as disappointed.
As an example of a disillusioning truth about the object: Consider the patient
who is made anxious when confronted with the reality that her husband, the
object of her relentless desire, is never going to love her in the ways that she
would have wanted him to. Let us imagine that the patient defends against the
acknowledgment of her husbands emotional inaccessibility by redoubling her
efforts to get him to be more tender and loving.
As an example of accountability for a dysfunctional choice the patient makes
to protect herself: Consider the patient who is made anxious when confronted
with the reality that she is responsible for choosing to stay married, year after
year, to a man who is emotionally distant. Let us imagine that the patient defends
against the acknowledgment of the part she is playing in the unfolding of her lifes
drama by telling herself that she has no choice but to stay married.
As an example of the price paid for holding on to a dysfunctional defense:
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Consider the patient who is made anxious when confronted with the reality that
she will be consigning herself to a lifetime of chronic frustration and
disappointment if she keeps hoping that maybe someday, somehow, some way,
she will be able to persuade her husband to change. Let us imagine that the
patient defends against the acknowledgment of just how empty her marriage is
and just how unhappy she is by eating and drinking to excess.
As an example of the work to be done in order to let go of a dysfunctional
defense: Consider a patient who is made anxious when confronted with the reality
that before she can make a responsible decision about whether to stay married,
she will need to experience, to the very depths of her soul, the pain of her grief
about the emotionally limited man she had chosen to marry years earlier and
come to terms with that sobering reality. Let us imagine that the patient defends
against the acknowledgment of her grief by settling into an immobilizing
depression that leaves her feeling powerless, helpless, and hopeless and for
which she takes antidepressant medication.
Price Paid for Dysfunctional Defenses

Again, although the patients defensive measures serve her by easing her
anxiety, they also limit her by making it more difficult for her to harness her
energy so that she can direct it toward the pursuit of her dreams. First, the
defenses, by virtue of the fact that they block the unobstructed flow of her energy,
72
interfere with the taming, modifying, and harnessing of the vital energies needed
to fuel her pursuit of her goals and aspirations. Second, the defenses themselves,
by virtue of the fact that they require the expenditure of energy to be operational,
reduce the amount of energy available for more constructive (that is, less
defensive and more adaptive) pursuits.
May the Force Be With You!

Working through the patients defenses working through her resistance
will therefore allow for the freer flow of energy and its channeling into more lifeaffirming endeavors. Apt here are the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi to Luke
Skywalker in the Star Wars movie May the Force be with you! which captures
exquisitely the importance of freeing up energy to provide the propulsive fuel for
the patients movement forward in life.
Ferreting Out Underlying Forces and Counterforces

And so it is that the focus of the therapeutic endeavor in Model 1 must be to
ferret out, on the one hand, the forces within the patient that are making her
anxious (many of which, if properly tamed, modified, and integrated, would fuel
her forward movement) and, on the other hand, the defensive counterforces she
mobilizes in an effort to control the anxiety. Again, these defensive counterforces
are interfering with the patients advancement because they are obstructing the
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free flow of the energy needed to empower her as she moves forward.
Libidinal and Aggressive Cathexis

In essence, the patients defenses both serve her (by making her anxiety
more manageable) and cost her (by jamming her up). To the extent that the
patients defenses serve her, there will be gain; but to the extent that they defeat
her, there will be pain. To the extent that there is gain, the defenses will become
libidinally (positively) cathected and be considered ego-syntonic; to the extent
that there is pain, the defenses will become aggressively (negatively) cathected
and be considered ego-dystonic.
In other words, the patient is ambivalently attached to her dysfunctional
defenses, and it is the ambivalence of this attachment to her defenses that makes
it so difficult for her to relinquish them.
Neurotic Conflict vs. Conflicted Attachment

As noted earlier, my Model 1 approach is a derivative of Freuds more
classical approach. In both approaches, internal conflict comes to the fore, that is,
conflict between a force that provokes anxiety and a defensive counterforce that
eases anxiety. But whereas Freuds classical approach emphasizes structural
conflict between id impulse and ego defense (conflict that makes the patient
neurotically conflicted and therefore jammed up), my Model 1 approach
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emphasizes the patients conflicted attachment to the defense itself (conflict that
makes the patient reluctant to relinquish the defense and therefore jammed up).
More specifically, on the one hand, I will be speaking to the conflict that
exists within the patient between id energy and ego defense, that is, tension
between a force that increases anxiety and a protective counterforce that
decreases that anxiety. As defense is transformed into adaptation, this conflict
between id and ego will be gradually replaced by collaboration between id and
ego. As noted earlier, it will be as if the ego, over time, decides If you cant beat
em, join em, a shift that speaks to the egos evolving capacity and marks the
transitioning of the ego from the defensive need to fight the id to the adaptive
capacity to harness the id energies to the mutual advantage (and relief) of both!
On the other hand, I will be speaking to the patients conflicted attachment
to her dysfunctional defenses. As we have been saying all along, the patient has a
conflicted (or ambivalent) attachment to her dysfunction because it both serves
her (that is, provides gain) and costs her (that is, causes pain). In other words,
there will be conflict within the patient between the satisfaction that she derives
from maintaining the dysfunction (which fuels her positive cathexis of it) and the
discomfort that she experiences as a result of refusing to relinquish that
dysfunction (which fuels her negative cathexis of it).
As I shall later develop in greater detail, it will be the tension created within
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the patient between her awareness of the pain and her awareness of the gain
(with the pain, over time, outweighing the gain) that will provide the impetus
needed for the patient ultimately to relinquish her attachment to the defense.
Admittedly, the way in which conflict is conceptualized in the two
approaches is a bit different, but the net result of being conflicted is the same,
namely, an impaired capacity to direct ones energies toward the fulfillment of
ones potential.
Rendering Conscious the Unconscious

Whereas Freuds classical approach emphasizes the rendering conscious of
neurotic conflict between id impulse and ego defense and my Model 1 approach
emphasizes the rendering conscious of the patients ambivalent attachment to the
defense itself, the therapeutic action in both instances is the same, namely,
exposing underlying conflict to the light of day so that the forces and
counterforces that give rise to that conflict can be tamed, modified, and integrated
and defense can be gradually transformed into adaptation.
Dawning Awareness of Inner Workings

In Model 1, it is therefore illuminating the patients ambivalent attachment
to dysfunctional defenses that assumes center stage. We are here speaking, of
course, to the critically important role of defense analysis and suggesting, more
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specifically, that before a defense can be tamed, modified, and integrated into an
adaptation, both its libidinal and its aggressive components must be illuminated
and analyzed.
One of the most clinically relevant conflicts for the patient will be the
internal tension created over time between, on the one hand, her awareness of the
price she pays for the dysfunctional defenses to which she clings and, on the other
hand, her awareness of her investment, fueled by her repetition compulsion, in
those defenses even so. The dysfunctional status quo to which the patient clings
for dear life is, on some level, a story about lifestyle choices she has made,
motivated by her unconscious need to avoid confronting the various sobering
realities, stressful challenges, disillusioning truths, and distressing affects that she
encounters in her everyday life. It is for the patient to recognize that these choices,
although they had once served her, have long since outlived their usefulness.
If the patients defenses (once necessary for her survival but now an
impediment to her ability to thrive) are ever to be surrendered and her energies
thereby freed up, it will be critically important that she become aware of the price
she pays for having those defenses, even as she is also coming to appreciate just
how invested she is in maintaining them. It is the patients dawning recognition of
just how costly her defenses are that will ultimately provide the therapeutic
leverage for her to relinquish them, in the process transforming them into
adaptations. In essence, she will be transforming her need to defend against
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sobering realities into the capacity to adapt to those stressful challenges.
Illumination and Analysis of Conflicted Attachment to Dysfunction

In sum, the therapeutic action in Model 1 can be conceptualized as involving
illumination and analysis of the intensely conflicted attachment that the patient
has to her dysfunction (an attachment that, fueled as it is by both positive and
negative energy, makes the defense both ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic). In other
words, the therapeutic action involves working through the patients intense
attachment to her dysfunctional defenses. The patient will be able to move
forward once she lets go of her dysfunction and is able to embrace less familiar
but healthier coping strategies.
Refusal to Let Go
What fuels the patients resistance to letting go of her dysfunction?
Freud offers us an answer. As noted earlier, Freuds proposal is that it is the
adhesiveness of the id that fuels the patients resistance. More specifically, it is the
adhesiveness of the id that fuels the patients investment in holding on to the
status quo no matter how dysfunctional of her defenses.
Let us now take a page from Fairbairn to flesh out our understanding of the
patients intense attachment to her defenses.
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Ambivalent Attachment to Internal Bad Objects

Fairbairn (1954) speaks directly to the patients intense attachment to her
internal bad objects. He postulates that the patients attachment to her internal
bad objects is intensely ambivalent. The bad object is both longed for (and
therefore libidinally cathected) because it excites and hated (and therefore
aggressively cathected) because it rejects.
So it is to Fairbairn that we look in order to understand the nature of the
patients attachment to her internal bad objects, an attachment that makes it
difficult for her both to separate from the infantile object and to extricate herself
from the compulsive repetitions that impel her again and again to re-create the
early-on traumatic failure situation in the hope that perhaps this time it will be
different, this time the resolution will be better.

Returning now to a consideration of the patients intense attachment not just
to the bad object but also, more generally, to her defenses, how might we
understand what underlies her attachment to her defenses?
I will be suggesting that here, too, the intensity of the patients attachment to
her defenses is fueled by her ambivalence and speaks, in essence, to what Freud
referred to as the adhesiveness of the id. After all, the id has both libidinal and
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aggressive energy, so any time the id grabs hold of something, that attachment
fueled as it will be by both libido and aggression will, of necessity, be an
ambivalent one.
More specifically, on the one hand, the patients dysfunctional defenses
benefit her because they protect her, thereby enabling her to survive; on the other
hand, they cost her because they limit her, thereby interfering with her ability to
thrive.
To the extent that the patients defenses benefit her (and are therefore egosyntonic), she will have a libidinal, or positive, attachment to them; to the extent
that the patients defenses cost her (and are therefore ego-dystonic), she will have
an aggressive, or negative, attachment to them.
In other words, the tenacity with which the patient clings to her defenses
will be a story about the adhesiveness of her id and will involve both libido and
aggression. Whether described as defenses, dysfunctional defenses, dysfunctional
internal dynamics, dysfunctional patterns of behavior, dysfunctional stance in life,
characteristic stance in the world, modus operandi, or dysfunctional status quo,
the therapist must never lose sight of the fact that the patient will have an
intensely conflicted attachment to the dysfunction an ambivalence that must be
deeply understood and appreciated if the patient is ever to be helped to tame and
modify the adhesiveness of her attachment to her defenses.
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The patient will be able to relinquish her unhealthy defenses in favor of

healthier adaptations only once she understands that her defenses both serve her
and cost her.
Inertia and Resistance to Change

All this is by way of saying that the adhesiveness of the id speaks to the
patients investment (an ambivalent one to be sure) in maintaining the status quo
of her underlying dysfunction and that it is this ambivalent attachment to the
dysfunction that will constitute her inertia and resistance to change.
As we all know, a patient does not simply let go of dysfunctional thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors because those reactions are creating problems for her in
her life. Rather, a patient will cling to her dysfunction because, at least on some
level, thinking, feeling, and behaving as she does, no matter how costly, is also
serving her.
Unwitting Re-enactments
By way of example: It is not merely happenstance that a patient who had an
emotionally abusive parent will find herself choosing partners who are
emotionally abusive. Clearly, something is being played out by way of this
compulsive and unwitting re-enactment on the patients part something that is
not only painful but also pleasurable, not only frustrating but also satisfying, not
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only costly but also beneficial. If the patient is ever to relinquish her dysfunction,
both the price she pays for having the dysfunction and the investment she has in
holding on to it must be recognized and worked through.
As further examples: A patient may compulsively overindulge in alcohol and
drugs in a desperate attempt to deal with her emptiness and to overcome her
longstanding feelings of deprivation and neglect. Her abuse of alcohol and drugs
may temporarily satisfy by offering the promise of filling up the void inside, but
her reckless overindulgence will also defeat her because it will make it hard for
her to live a productive and fulfilling life. Her pattern of addiction and abstinence
will continue until she is able to work through the libidinal and aggressive
adhesiveness of her id to the dysfunctional, self-sabotaging behavior.
Or a patient may be relentless in her pursuit of an unattainable love object
because she has never resolved the conflicted feelings she has about her first
partner, namely, her parent. The patients relentless pursuit of the perfect parent
(be it in relation to either the actual parent or a parent substitute) serves her
because it enables her not to have to confront and grieve the reality that the
actual parent was far from perfect; but the patients relentless pursuit also costs
her because her heart is being constantly broken as a result of the dysfunctional
object choices that she finds herself making again and again. The patient will
continue to experience heartbreak until she begins to face the reality that the
suffering she is causing herself (by choosing inappropriate love objects) far
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outweighs the protection she has secured for herself by not dealing with the earlyon parental failure of her. Only once the pain of her heartbreak becomes greater
than the gain of her self-protective refusal to grieve will the patient be able to
overcome the adhesiveness of the id and relinquish her attachment to her
relentless pursuit.
Or a patient may be drawn to partners who are critical and controlling
because she has not yet worked through the complex mix of feelings she has about
a critical and controlling parent; it is this that is most familiar to her and with
which she is therefore, on some level, most comfortable in essence, the lure of
the familial and therefore familiar (Mitchell 1988). Her choice of critical and
controlling partners serves her by fueling her hope that perhaps someday,
somehow, some way, were she but to try hard enough, she might yet be able to
find a critical and controlling partner whom she could force to be kind, gentle, and
accepting of her, but her dysfunctional object choices also defeat her because they
consign her to a lifetime of chronic frustration and feelings of defeat. The patient
will continue to choose inappropriate and, sadly, all-too-familiar bad objects until
she has come to appreciate, deeply, both the lure of the familiar and the price she
pays for refusing to let go of her compulsive and unwitting re-enactments.
In other words, it must never be forgotten that the patients attachment to
her dysfunction (be it in the form of her dysfunctional relationships or, more
generally, her dysfunctional defenses) is ambivalent costly even as she is
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invested in it. Until that ambivalence is deeply understood and worked through by
highlighting both the pain and the gain, the patient will cling to her dysfunction
and refuse to let it go.
Importance of Recognizing Both Cost and Benefit

In some instances, the patient will be more aware of the benefit than of the
cost (as can happen, for example, when the patient, in denial about the reality of
just how lonely she actually is, keeps hoping that her husband will change).
Usually, however, the patient will be more aware of the cost than of the benefit (as
can happen, for example, when, overwhelmed by all her responsibilities at work,
she constantly gets migraines that force her to keep taking time off from her job).
In the first instance, the patient is more aware of how hopeful she is that
ultimately she will be able to get her husband to change than she is of the
loneliness she experiences as a result of her dysfunctional object choice; in the
second instance, the patient is more aware of how painful her constant migraines
are than of how they enable her to avoid having to get serious about completing
her projects at work.
By the same token, sometimes the patient will be more in touch with the
love she experiences in relation to a bad object than with the hatred that is also
there; at other times, however, she will be more in touch with the hatred she
experiences in relation to the bad object than with the love that is also there.
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Ultimately, the patient must be able to recognize both the love and the hatred,
both the longing and the aversion if she is ever to be able to separate from the bad
object and move on to a more appropriate object choice.
Relinquishment of the Defense

In sum: Working through the patients resistance, therefore, requires a
working through of her conflicted attachment to the resistance. It requires
working through the adhesiveness of the id working through both the libidinal
component of that attachment (fueled by the patients investment in having the
defense) and the aggressive component of that attachment (fueled by the price the
patient pays for clinging to the defense).
It is therefore the adhesiveness of the id to the defense that makes
relinquishment of the defense so difficult; and, by the same token, the fact that the
defense is so invested with both libido (because the defense benefits the patient)
and aggression (because the defense costs the patient) that makes the
transformation of defense into adaptation so challenging.
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PART TWO Convergent Conflict

Freuds interest, of course, is in the tension that exists between id and ego, id
drive and ego defense, drive and defense intrapsychic conflict to which he refers
as neurotic, or structural, conflict. His, as we know, is a drive-defense model.
I would like now, however, to call upon a critically important distinction that
Kris (1985) makes between convergent conflict (akin to Freuds structural
conflict) and divergent conflict a distinction that I believe is a clinically
significant one because it offers a further level of refinement to our understanding
of what exactly it is that needs to be worked through and resolved.
Conflict Between Anxiety-Provoking Stressor and Anxiety-Assuaging Defense

Convergent conflict speaks to conflict between a force that makes us anxious
and the counterforce we defensively mobilize in an effort to counter that anxiety.
Convergent conflict is therefore a story about conflict between an anxietyprovoking stressor (for example, having to confront the reality that the object of
ones desire is not available) and an anxiety-assuaging defense (for example,
redoubling ones efforts to win him over even so). There would be no need for the
defense but for the fact of the stressor. In fact, the very existence of the defense
depends upon the presence of the stressor.
Conflict within the patient between force and counterforce will, of necessity,
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impede the patients forward movement in her life and will ultimately need to be
resolved if the patient is ever to become her most authentic, actualized self.
Convergent conflict ties up both the energy used to fuel the force and the energy
used to fuel the counterforce energies that could be put to much better use were
a tamer id to be harnessed by a more mature ego able to direct the ids energy
toward optimization of the egos potential and realization of its dreams.
An example of convergent conflict is the conflict that exists within a patient
between, on the one hand, her desire, albeit a conflictual one, to advance herself in
her career (this desire an anxiety-provoking stressor) and, on the other hand, her
holding back for fear of being judged and found inadequate (this holding back a
defensive reaction to anxiety generated by her conflictual ambition to advance
herself professionally). We are speaking here to conflict between healthy desire
and its neurotic inhibition.
Or consider the convergent conflict that exists within a patient between, on
the one hand, her begrudging recognition of the fact that, on some level, she is
angry (this anger an anxiety-provoking stressor) and, on the other hand, her
defensive need to deny such anger and to insist that she is, instead, simply
disappointed (this disappointment a defensive reaction to anxiety generated by
the presence of her anger). We are speaking here to conflict between healthy affect
and its neurotic denial.
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Conflict Between Empowering Forces and Obstructive Counterforces

Expressed in somewhat different terms, what convergent conflict often
entails is progress-impeding tension between a healthy, empowering force that
ultimately, were it to be tamed, modified, and integrated, would provide the
impetus for the patients movement forward in life, and a less healthy. defensive
counterforce that the patient has reflexively mobilized to quell the anxiety
generated by the presence of the conflictual healthy force. In essence, convergent
conflict is between healthy but anxiety-provoking yes energies and less healthy
but anxiety-assuaging no energies.
Feelings of Helplessness, Paralysis, and Victimization

Although a patient may be unable to identify the exact nature of the
conflictual forces and counterforces at war within, she will probably be aware of
the fact that she is in conflict and suffering; her experience will be that she feels
stuck in her life and her relationships.
By their very nature, convergent conflicts make us feel helpless, powerless,
and victimized. They make us feel that we have no control over not only what
happens to us but also what we ourselves do. They paralyze us and make us
unable to do that which we would rather and unable to stop doing that which we
would rather not. Convergent (neurotic) conflicts interfere with our ability to
harness our energies to power our pursuit of realistic and fulfilling goals.
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In essence, unmastered convergent conflicts create dysfunction in our lives

in the form of unhealthy thoughts, affects, and behaviors; they tie up our energies;
and they interfere with the actualization of our most authentic selves and our
fullest potential.
Privation, Deprivation, and Insult

Being neurotic means being jammed up because of unresolved experiences
from ones childhood. Unmastered privations (absence of good), insults (presence
of bad), and deprivations (had it, then lost it) suffered early on will give rise later
in life to illusions (positive misperceptions of reality), distortions (negative
misperceptions of reality), and entitlement (demanding insistence that something
is ones due, despite evidence to the contrary) illusions, distortions, and
entitlement that will interfere, over time, with ones ability to experience reality as
it is.
As an example, a child whose parent was rarely loving or accepting may well
find herself playing out, in subsequent relationships, her infantile yearning to be
loved in the way that only a perfect parent would love her child; these compulsive
and unwitting re-enactments, deriving from an ambivalent attachment to the
parent, will almost inevitably give rise to problematic love relationships for the
patient later on in life. Never having confronted and grieved the reality of the
parents deficiencies, the patient will find herself making object choices that are
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neurotic, inasmuch as those choices will be complicated by positive misperception

or illusion, namely, the illusory hope that subsequent partners will be the good
parent the patient never had consistently and reliably as a child and will therefore
be able to make up the difference to her for the parental deficiencies. In essence,
because of privation (absence of good) in the early-on parent-child relationship,
the patient will play out her neurotic conflictedness about finding a loving and
accepting life partner in subsequent relationships.
As another example, a child whose parent was critical and punitive may well
find herself holding back, in subsequent relationships, for fear of being judged,
found lacking, and punished; these compulsive and unwitting re-enactments,
deriving from an ambivalent attachment to the parent, will almost inevitably give
rise to problematic love relationships for the patient later on in life. Never having
confronted and grieved the reality of the parents toxicities, the patient will
find herself making object choices that are neurotic, inasmuch as those choices
will be complicated by negative misperception or distortion, namely, the distorted
fear and expectation that subsequent partners will be the bad parent the patient
had as a child and will therefore cause her the same heartbreak as the parent had
caused her. In essence, because of insults (presence of bad) in the early-on parentchild relationship, the patient will play out her neurotic conflictedness about
finding a noncritical and nonpunitive life partner in subsequent relationships.
As a further example, a child whose parent was alternately exciting and then
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rejecting may well find herself drawn, in subsequent relationships, to seductive

partners who, just like the parent, appear to offer the enticing promise of a certain
kind of relatedness only later to devastate by reneging on that promise. These
compulsive and unwitting re-enactments, deriving from an ambivalent
attachment to the parent, will almost inevitably give rise to problematic love
relationships for the patient later on in life. Never having confronted and grieved
the reality of the parents seductiveness, the patient will find herself making
object choices that are neurotic, inasmuch as those choices will be based upon
relentless entitlement, namely, the patients entitled sense that something is her
due, despite the fact that a panel of 10,000 objective judges would probably agree
that what the patient is wanting will never actually be forthcoming, even if it had
been seductively promised by the partner and, before that, by the parent. In
essence, because of deprivations (paradise lost and never recovered) in the earlyon parent-child relationship, the patient will play out her neurotic conflictedness
about finding a consistently present and reliable life partner in subsequent
relationships.
In all three instances (whether of unmastered early-on parental privation,
insult, and/or deprivation), because of the unprocessed and unintegrated feelings
the patient still harbors in relation to her parent and the parents limitations, the
patient will have underlying anxiety about allowing herself to find a good, solid,
reliable relationship with a lovingly accepting life partner because it will threaten
her attachment to the infantile (parental) object.
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Anxiety-Provoking Recognition That Things Could Have Been Different

Part of what fuels the intensity of the patients attachment to the object,
albeit an ambivalent one, is the following: Were the patient to allow herself to
have something other than what her parent had offered, she would become
incredibly anxious because having something different would highlight the fact
that things could be, and could therefore have been, different. Again, I am speaking
to the power of the lure of the familial and therefore familiar, no matter how
dysfunctional, that underlies the illusions, distortions, and entitlement to which
patients so desperately cling and that prove to be so powerfully motivating in love
relationships.
Convergent Conflict vs. Divergent Conflict

What all convergent conflicts have in common is a force that provokes
anxiety and a counterforce that is mobilized (by an undeveloped ego) in an effort
to ease that anxiety. Convergent conflicts are the meat and potatoes of
psychodynamic psychotherapy, especially Model 1 (the classical psychoanalytic
perspective). Ultimately, as a result of working through the convergent conflict, its
resolution can be achieved and horse and rider can ride off into the sunset if the
anxiety-provoking forces that had been too much to process and integrate can, at
last, be harnessed and redirected by an ever-evolving and ever-more-empowered
ego.
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There is, however, another kind of conflict in addition to convergent conflict,

namely, divergent conflict. Divergent conflict speaks to conflict between two
forces that are independent of each other, an example of which is the conflict that
exists within a patient between her anger at her husband and her love for him
(neither one of which is a defensive reaction to the other). Another example would
be the conflict that exists within a patient between her investment in her family
and her investment in her career.
In short, whereas convergent conflict is about conflict between a force and a
counterforce mobilized as a defensive reaction to the initial force, divergent
conflict is about conflict between two forces that have no particular relationship
to each other (but for the fact that they reflect two alternatives, two options, or
two courses of action). And whereas convergent conflict involves a (an anxietyprovoking force) but b (an anxiety-assuaging counterforce), divergent conflict
involves a (a force) or b (an alternative force).
Conflict Between Health-Promoting Forces and Health-Disrupting

Counterforces
As the ultimately health-promoting yes forces become better regulated over
time and the defensive health-disrupting no counterforces become more adept at
regulating, the forces and counterforces in keeping with Freuds metaphor of the
horse and rider will begin to work in concert to power constructive pursuits.
Freud aptly described the transitioning from primitive to healthy as a story about
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transforming primitive defense into sublimation; my choice is to describe that

transitioning from primitive to healthy as a story about transforming defense into
adaptation.
Defusing Energy and Enhancing Awareness

As I have been suggesting throughout this book, defense is transformed into
adaptation as a result of both defusing the id energies (thereby taming the
wildness of the id) and enhancing the egos awareness of its internal dynamics
(thereby strengthening the capacity of the ego). Taming the id and strengthening
the ego will transform a difficult situation characterized by an immature ego made
intolerably anxious by the threatened breakthrough of dysregulated id energies
into a more tolerable situation characterized by a more developed ego better able
to adapt by directing now-modified id energies into more constructive channels.
Where once an unevolved ego (made anxious) had the defensive need to put a lid
on the id, now a more evolved ego (better able to deal) has the adaptive capacity
to harness the id energies to fuel healthy pursuits and realistic goals.
From Unevolved to More Evolved

By way of more specific examples: Where once an unevolved ego could not
tolerate acknowledgment of its anger, now a more evolved ego is able to channel
its aggression into healthy competition in sports. Where once an unevolved ego
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demanded immediate gratification, now a more evolved ego can tolerate delay.
Where once an unevolved ego was relentless in its pursuit of the unattainable,
now a more evolved ego is more realistic in its acceptance of limits. Where once
an unevolved ego would lash out in anger when thwarted, now a more evolved
ego is better able to tolerate frustration. Where once an unevolved ego was prone
to experience others as critical, now a more evolved ego is able to recognize when
someone is being critical and when not. Where once an unevolved ego needed to
be right, now a more evolved ego can tolerate being sometimes wrong. When once
an unevolved ego was impulsive and reactive, now a more evolved ego can better
regulate its actions, reactions, and interactions.
Once the egos dysfunctional defenses have been worked through by being,
first, illuminated and, then, analyzed (that is, analysis of defense) and, as part of
that working-through process, once the dysregulated libidinal and aggressive
energies being held in check by those primitive defenses have had an opportunity
to be tamed, modified, and integrated, there will no longer be the same need for
the ego to mobilize primitive defenses in order to protect itself from being
overwhelmed, and the energies themselves will now be more modulated.
From Overwhelming to More Manageable

In essence, as a result of the working-through process, primitive defenses
(once mobilized in order to put a lid on the id) will no longer be as necessary. Two
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things will have accrued: First, the ego will now be more adept at managing the
anxiety-provoking forces within, and, second, the forces within will now be more
manageable.
From the Need to Defend to the Capacity to Adapt

In other words, the ego will now be better equipped to direct the now-tamer
energies of the id toward actualization of the patients potential and realization of
her dreams. The ego will no longer need to defend by putting a lid on the id
(thereby robbing the ego of its supply of energy). Rather, the ego will now be
better able to adapt by harnessing the id energy and directing this energy into
more constructive channels.
From Unhealthy Defense to Healthier Adaptation

In essence, as the conflict between id energy and ego defense gradually
resolves, unhealthy defense becomes transformed into healthier adaptation.
Harnessing the Id and Refashioning the Ego

To review: Neurotic conflict (convergent conflict, structural conflict,
intrapsychic conflict) is a story about tension between id drive and ego defense,
that is, between dysregulated id drive and primitive ego defense. If properly
worked through, there will be a harnessing of the dysregulated id energy and a
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refashioning of the primitive ego defense into a healthier ego adaptation such that
where before a threatened and overwhelmed ego had the need to put a rigid lid on
the id in an effort to prevent a runaway situation, now a more mature and
adaptable ego has the capacity to work with the id by harnessing its energy and
redirecting that energy to power more constructive pursuits.
Horse and Rider in Sync

Returning to Freuds metaphor of the horse and rider: Where before a
threatened and overwhelmed rider had the need to rein in her horse sharply in an
effort to prevent a runaway situation, now a more mature and adaptable rider has
the capacity to work with the horse by harnessing its energy and redirecting that
energy to power the progression of them both forward.
Efforts to Ease Anxiety

Our interest throughout this book will be primarily in convergent conflicts
(and not divergent conflicts), that is, the neurotic conflicts that exist within all of
us between intolerably painful realities and the defenses we mobilize in an effort
to ease the anxiety generated by those realities (or, perhaps more accurately, the
defenses we mobilize in an effort to ease the anxiety generated by our awareness
and/or acknowledgment of those realities). In other words, our focus will be on
the tension that exists between anxiety-provoking realities (the acknowledgment
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and processing of which will ultimately empower us and fuel our movement
forward) and anxiety-assuaging defenses (the presence of which is
disempowering and thwarts our advancement).
Depending upon the context, neurotic conflict can therefore be variously
described as speaking to conflict between (1) anxiety-provoking forces and
anxiety-assuaging (defensive) counterforces, (2) empowering forces and
disempowering (defensive) counterforces, or (3) health-promoting forces and
health-obstructing (defensive) counterforces.
Intrapsychic conflict results from the egos impaired capacity to process,
integrate, and adapt to the impact of stressful (anxiety-provoking but ultimately
empowering and health-promoting) challenge necessitating mobilization of
stress-reducing (anxiety-assuaging but ultimately disempowering and healthobstructing) defenses. Such a conflicted patient will then be characterized as
neurotic, jammed up, resistant, entrenched, immobilized, paralyzed, stuck.
The anxiety-provoking but ultimately empowering and health-promoting
forces include, but are not limited to, such impactful stressors as (1) distressing
affects, (2) dysregulated energies, (3) disillusioning truths, (4) sobering realities,
(5) stressful challenges, and (6) the various and sundry privations, deprivations,
and insults sustained over the course of ones life. If these impactful stressors can
be processed, integrated, and adapted to, then their energy can indeed be
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harnessed by an ever-evolving ego to provide the propulsive fuel for ones

movement forward in life.
The anxiety-assuaging but ultimately disempowering and health-disrupting
counterforces include, but are not limited to, such defensive countermeasures as
(1) the well-known classical defense mechanisms (for example, repression,
suppression, denial, compartmentalization, reaction formation, intellectualization,
displacement, and projection, to name a few); (2) resistance (the signature
defense in Model 1), relentlessness/refusal to grieve (the signature defense in
Model 2), and re-enactment (the signature defense in Model 3); and (3) illusions,
distortions, and entitlement. If these defensive countermeasures (mobilized by an
overwhelmed ego unable to process and integrate) can be refashioned into
healthier adaptations, then the ever-evolving ego can harness the id energies to
provide the propulsive fuel for its forward movement.
Again, it is the simultaneous taming of the id and strengthening of the ego
that enable the achievement of maturity as defense is transformed into
adaptation, that is, as resistance is worked through and transformed into
awareness (Model 1), relentlessness transformed into acceptance (Model 2), and
re-enactment transformed into accountability (Model 3). It is, after all, horse and
rider working in sync that allows the forward movement to be accomplished with
speed and grace.
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Dysfunctional Defenses
When I refer to the patients defenses, my intention is to include all the
various dysfunctional thoughts, dysfunctional feelings, and dysfunctional
actions/reactions/interactions to which the patient clings in order to avoid
confronting the myriad anxiety-provoking realities to which she is being
continuously exposed, be they from the outside or from the inside. But whether
the dysfunctional defenses involve thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors, all three
modes of therapeutic action address this dysfunction it is just that the different
modes do so in different ways.
Cognitive, Affective, and Relational Approaches to Healing

More specifically, Model 1 is a more cognitive approach to transforming
defense into adaptation. It involves neutrality, detachment, objectivity, and
rationality, and it conceives of the therapeutic action as a story about working
through the patients resistance in order to illuminate, and make more
manageable, the underlying forces and defensive counterforces at play within the
patient.
As we shall see, among many other interventions, path-of-least-resistance
statements, conflict statements, and inverted conflict statements are used by the
Model 1 therapist to facilitate working through the patients resistance the net
result of which will be transformation of resistance into awareness. From defense
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to adaptation.
Model 2 is a more affective approach to transforming defense into
adaptation. It involves empathic attunement to the patients moment-by-moment
experience (including, especially, her refusal to confront the reality of the objects
limitations, separateness, and immutability), and it conceives of the therapeutic
action as a story about working through the patients relentlessness by creating a
supportive space within which she can confront and grieve the pain of her
disillusionment about the object.
As we shall see, among many other interventions, disillusionment
statements are used by the Model 2 therapist to facilitate the patients grieving of
intolerably painful realities about the object the net result of which will be
transformation of relentlessness into acceptance. From defense to adaptation.
Model 3 is a more relational approach. It involves authentic engagement
between patient and therapist (also described as shared mind and shared heart),
and it conceives of the therapeutic action as a story about negotiating and
resolving (by way of creating a different outcome this time) the re-enactments
that will inevitably arise at the intimate edge of dysfunctional relatedness
between patient and therapist.
As we shall see, instead of calling upon prototypical statements, the Model 3
therapist will facilitate negotiation at the intimate edge by bringing to bear her
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own, more evolved capacity to process and integrate, on behalf of a patient who
truly does not know how, toxic boluses of the patients unmastered experience
the net result of which will be transformation of re-enactment into accountability.
From defense to adaptation.
So all three modes of therapeutic action deal with the patients dysfunctional
defenses, but each one does it in a way that distinguishes it from the other two. In
sum, Model 1 involves working through the patients (defensive) resistance in
order to help her develop more awareness of her internal conflicts and it does
this primarily by engaging the patients head; Model 2 involves working through
the patients (defensive) refusal to grieve in order to help her develop more
acceptance of the objects limitations and it does this primarily by engaging the
patients heart; and Model 3 involves working through the patients (defensive)
re-enactments in order to help her develop more accountability for her actions,
reactions, and interactions and it does this primarily by engaging patient and
therapist at their intimate edge.
Rendering the Defenses Less Adaptive, Less Necessary, and Less Toxic
By illuminating the price the patient pays for holding on to her dysfunction,
the therapeutic action in Model 1 renders the defense less adaptive (because the
patient is finally appreciating how maladaptive it is for her to be clinging still to
her dysfunction). By creating a safe space into which the patient can deliver the
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pain of her grief about the loss of something to which she had been intensely
attached, the therapeutic action in Model 2 renders the defense less necessary
(because the patient is finally dealing with the pain of her grief). And by allowing
for a more successful resolution, this time, of the patients compulsive and
unwitting re-enactments, the therapeutic action in Model 3 renders the defense
less toxic (because the pathogenicity of the patients dysfunction will be detoxified
by a therapist able to lend aspects of her own more evolved capacity to a
processing and integrating of the patients internal badness).
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PART THREE Optimally Stressful

Psychotherapeutic Interventions
By employing any of the various interventions within her repertoire
(presented below), the Model 1 therapist is attempting to expose to the light of
day the convergent conflicts underlying the patients dysfunction. The therapist
does this by way of interventions that encourage the patient to step back from her
experience so that she can bear witness to it with compassion and without
judgment.
Paradoxically, it is sometimes only by way of encouraging the patient simply
to observe what is going on inside of her again, with compassion and without
judgment that she will be able truly to experience it and take ownership of it.
The patient is being encouraged to bear witness to her inner process.
Ultimately, of course, the therapeutic goal is to render conscious what had
once been unconscious so that the patient can begin to understand both what is
making her anxious and what she is doing in a misguided attempt to alleviate that
anxiety.
Here Too, Here Now, Once Again

The therapist, by calling the patients attention again and again to both the
anxiety-provoking stressor and the anxiety-assuaging defense mobilized as a
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reaction to the stressor, is hoping to increase the patients level of awareness

about the neurotic conflicts that are jamming her up and impeding her forward
movement.
Ever-Increasing Awareness
It will be the patients ever-increasing awareness of her internal conflict
between healthy yes forces and unhealthy no counterforces (the goal in Model 1)
and, most especially, between the price the patient is coming to understand she
pays for clinging to her defenses and her ever-evolving awareness of just how
invested she is in holding on to them even so that will ultimately provide the
therapeutic leverage needed for her to relinquish her attachment to the defensive
no forces in favor of a more adaptive harnessing of the yes forces to supercharge
the realization of more realistic pursuits and aspirations.
Anxiety-Provoking But Ultimately Health-Promoting Interventions

As has been discussed throughout this book, it is hoped that psychodynamic
psychotherapy will offer the patient an opportunity to do now what she was not
able to do earlier in her life, namely, to process, integrate, and adapt to the impact
of the various environmental stressors to which she has been exposed over time
and against which she has had to defend herself by clinging to all manner of
dysfunctional defenses that have come to define her stance in life. Psychodynamic
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psychotherapy offers the patient a chance to do now whatever she must in order
ultimately both to tame, modify, and integrate her dysregulated energies and to
refashion her primitive defenses into healthier adaptations such that no longer
needing to put a rigid lid on an untamed id, she will now have the adaptive
capacity to channel those tamed energies into more constructive pursuits.
Objective Knowledge vs. Subjective Experience

Because of its cognitive focus, Model 1 lends itself remarkably well to the use
of a variety of prototypical anxiety-provoking but ultimately insight- (and health-)
promoting interventions designed to heighten the patients awareness of her
internal dynamics, her internal process, her internal conflicts. These
interventions, which juxtapose the patients objective knowledge of various
sobering and anxiety-provoking realities with her subjective experience of them,
are designed to encourage, or, where appropriate, force the patient to take note of
the discrepancy between what she knows to be real (for example, that the object
of her desire is never going to love her in the way that she would have wanted him
to) and what she finds herself experiencing as real (for example, that if she tries
really hard she might yet be able to make him love her in that way).
With respect to the patients objective knowledge: What she knows to be
real is something that could easily enough be confirmed by a panel of 10,000
judges; it is objectively verifiable. What she knows is informed by here-and-now
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realities, albeit sobering ones. Being reminded of various self-evident sobering

realities will admittedly make the patient anxious (and prompt her to mobilize
anxiety-assuaging and dysfunctional defenses); at least on some level,
however, she will have to grant that she does truly know that thus-and-such is
true.
With respect to the patients subjective experience: What she finds herself
experiencing as real is more subjective; it is not objectively verifiable. What she
finds herself experiencing is often informed by unresolved issues from her past,
represents a knee-jerk reaction to stressors that were simply too much to be
processed and integrated at the time, and is therefore defensive in nature.
I have intentionally chosen the words finds herself experiencing (instead of,
simply, experiences) because I want to highlight the knee-jerk and, as is true for
most defenses, often unconscious reactivity of the patient to something that is
overwhelming. When a defense kicks in, it is usually involuntary and with no
forethought; the patient will literally find herself thinking, feeling, or doing
something without reflecting upon it in advance. Again, whereas adaptations
emerge only over time and are the result of processing and integrating an
environmental stressor, defenses tend to be activated almost instantaneously and
require little effort.
10,000 Objective Judges vs. a Party of One
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Throughout this book, I sometimes refer to objective reality as something

that could be verified by a panel of 10,000 objective judges; by the same token, I
sometimes refer to subjective reality as, simply, a party of one (in order to
highlight the me, myself, and I aspect of the patients experience and the lack of
openness to input from others).
With Compassion and Without Judgment

Challenging the patient by reminding her of a sobering reality (that she must
ultimately confront if she is ever to get better) may well temporarily destabilize
her psychological equilibrium; but the patient must ultimately be able to take
healthy ownership of this sobering reality, even when such acknowledgment
makes her anxious, if she is ever to harness the energy surrounding her awareness
of that reality and use it to power her forward movement.
Supporting the patient by resonating with what she finds herself feeling
when confronted with a sobering reality will enable the patient to feel understood.
Even when what she is feeling is a result of the operation of dysfunctional
defenses that she has mobilized in order to avoid having to face certain stressful
challenges, it is still critically important that she be able to know that her
subjective experience of reality has been recognized by the therapist and honored
with compassion and without judgment.
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Observing Ego and Experiencing Ego

Because Model 1 is more cognitive than either Model 2 (which is more
affective) or Model 3 (which is more relational), Model 1 lends itself very
comfortably to the use of these interventions geared specifically toward
encouraging the patient to step back from her moment-by-moment experience in
order to bear witness to it and to make note of the discrepancy between what she
in all honesty really does know and what she finds herself defensively thinking,
feeling, and doing instead.
The Model 1 therapist wants the patient to become ever more aware of her
internal dynamics. The therapist wants to engage both the patients observing (or
reflecting) ego and her experiencing ego.
Knowledge of Reality vs. Experience of Reality

By making use of the various anxiety-provoking but ultimately insight- (and
health-) promoting interventions in the Model 1 therapists repertoire, the
therapist must work assiduously to illuminate the discrepancy between the
patients knowledge of reality (informed by her adaptive capacity to sit with the
anxiety she experiences when reminded of what she really does know to be true)
and her experience of reality (informed by her defensive need to protect herself
against having to acknowledge those sobering realities). The therapist does this by
going back and forth between challenging the patient (by reminding her of the
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sobering realities that she really does know, even if she would rather not) and
supporting her (by resonating empathically with her experience of reality) all
with an eye to creating tension within the patient between her knowledge of
reality and her experience of it.
Juxtaposition of Whats Known With Whats Being Experienced

As the therapist repeatedly juxtaposes the patients knowledge of reality
with the patients experience of reality, the patient will be forced to see ever more
clearly, even if reluctantly, the discrepancy between the sobering reality with
which she is being confronted and her defensive need to protect herself against
having to acknowledge it.
The Creation of Cognitive Dissonance

This ever-increasing awareness of the discord between her knowledge and
her experience will ultimately create cognitive dissonance dissonance that will
ultimately force the patient to relinquish her attachment to a defense that,
although once ego-syntonic because it eased her anxiety, has now become
increasingly ego-dystonic as the patient comes to recognize the price she is paying
for holding on to it.
In essence, we are creating cognitive dissonance between an anxietyprovoking reality (or at least the patients awareness of that sobering reality) and
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an anxiety-assuaging defense (the patients reflexive reaction to being confronted

with that sobering reality). Again, it will ultimately be the stress and strain created
by the cognitive dissonance between what the patient knows (knowledge that is
objective and informed by reality) and what she finds herself reflexively thinking,
feeling, and doing instead (experience that is subjective and informed by defense)
that will prompt her to relinquish her attachment to that which is creating
problems for her, namely, her dysfunctional defenses.
Stress and Strain

In the final analysis, it will be the stress and strain created by the cognitive
dissonance between the patients ever-increasing awareness of the price she pays
for clinging to her dysfunctional defenses and, as a result, her increasingly
ambivalent attachment to those defenses that will ultimately force her to let go of
the dysfunction as she becomes ever more aware of the fact that defenses which
had once served her (and in which she was therefore invested) are actually costly
and progress impeding.
Again, the therapist repeatedly challenges (in order to destabilize the
dysfunctional system) and supports (in order to tap into the systems resilience
and adaptive capacity) all with an eye to restoring psychological balance at a
higher, more-evolved level.
In essence, the cognitive dissonance created by the patients ever-increasing
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recognition of the discrepancy between her knowledge and her experience can
only be resolved once the patient, with the ongoing support of her therapist, has
let go of the dysfunction that had informed her experience, thereby enabling her
to reconstitute at a higher level of functionality, integration, and balance.
Inborn Capacity to Self-Heal in the Face of Optimal Challenge

In sum, it is under the sway of the repetition compulsion that dysfunction
continues to be unwittingly played out, but it is under the sway of the systems
innate ability to repair itself in the face of optimal challenge that the system, with
enough support from the outside, will be able adaptively to reconstitute at everhigher levels. The systems intrinsic ability to self-heal is, of course, ultimately a
story about the systems resilience and capacity to cope with stress not by
defending against it but by adapting to it.
In the face of just enough challenge (challenge that is neither too much nor
too little) and with the benefit of ongoing support from the therapist, the systems
inherent capacity to self-correct when confronted with an environmental stressor
be it from the outside (in the form of a challenging psychotherapeutic
intervention) or from the inside (in the form of threatened breakthrough of
anxiety-provoking forces) will allow the system not only to recover its balance
but then some.
After all, evolutionary processes (like the developmental process and the
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therapeutic process) advance the system not only by restoring homeostatic

equilibrium but also by taking the system to a higher, more- evolved level.
The anxiety-provoking but ultimately insight-promoting psychotherapeutic
interventions that I have developed are specifically designed to throw off the
balance of the system just enough that this challenge, coupled with ongoing
support from the therapist, will tap into the systems inherent resilience and
capacity to cope with optimal stress by triggering the systems innate capacity to
self-repair when confronted with an environmental stressor.
Defensive Collapse vs. Adaptive Reconstitution

The critical issue will be the systems ability to process and integrate the
impact of that stressor. If the intervention cannot be adequately processed and
integrated, then it will contribute to a compromised systems further decline; but
if the intervention can indeed be adequately processed and integrated, then it will
contribute to a resilient systems further strengthening.
Challenge When Possible and Support When Necessary

The various interventions that I will be discussing are both anxiety
provoking (inasmuch as they initially serve to destabilize the system, albeit a
dysfunctional one) and health promoting (inasmuch as they ultimately serve to
restabilize the system at a higher level of awareness, functionality, and adaptive
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capacity). The intent of these interventions is to provide an optimal mix of

challenge (when possible) and support (when necessary), so that the processing
and integrating of previously unmastered (traumatizing) experience can be
facilitated and defense can be transformed into awareness and ever-evolving
functional capacity.
After all, the more effectively unmastered experience can be processed and
integrated, the less will there be need for reflexive mobilization of dysfunctional
defenses (by an overwhelmed ego) and the greater will there be capacity for the
utilization of more functional adaptations (by an ever-evolving ego).
And Then Some

More generally, as discussed in an earlier section, self-organizing systems
resist perturbation, which means that the homeostatic balance of such systems
needs to be sufficiently disrupted that there will be opportunity for the systems
self-healing mechanisms to kick in. Activation of the systems intrinsic striving
toward health by way of optimal challenge will be such that balance can indeed be
ultimately restored and, it is hoped, at a higher, more- evolved level of
functionality. When not only balance is restored but also the system is prompted
to evolve to a higher level, I refer to this adaptive reconstitution as and then some
(Stark 2008, 2012, 2014).
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Destabilization and Restabilization

The various anxiety-provoking but insight-promoting psychological
interventions that are staples in the Model 1 therapists armamentarium do just
this. First, the intervention must be able to provoke enough anxiety that the
system will become temporarily destabilized; but the intervention must also be
able to provide enough support that this input, in conjunction with the underlying
resilience of the system, will trigger self-correcting mechanisms that enable the
system to restabilize at a higher, more-evolved level.
In other words, the Model 1 therapists interventions must alternately
challenge in order to destabilize the system and then support in order to allow for
its restabilization at ever-higher levels of functionality, balance, and adaptive
capacity.
In essence, the systems capacity to right itself when destabilized, coupled
with ongoing input from the therapist (in the form of interventions that
alternately challenge and support), will become the means by which dysfunctional
systems are able adaptively to reconstitute at ever-higher levels of integration,
balance, and functionality. The reconstituted system will then be not only good as
new but oftentimes better than new; the system will have restabilized and then
some!
Psychodynamic Equivalent of Homeopathic Remedies
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E. McGuire (personal communication, September 15, 2013) has suggested

that the anxiety-provoking but insight-promoting interventions in the Model 1
therapists armamentarium are the psychodynamic equivalent of homeopathic
remedies, which promote healing by challenging the system with an attenuated
version of the pathogenic incitant that had created the problem to begin with,
thereby triggering the systems intrinsic ability to self-heal.
In conventional medicine (also known as traditional or Western medicine),
allopathic remedies treat symptoms of illness with anti-symptom medications
(such as antitussives for coughs, antiemetics for nausea and vomiting; antipyretics
for fevers; antihypertensives for high blood pressure; and antidepressants for
depression). In other words, they offer the patient a different (allo-) substance to
combat the illness (-path). Homeopathic remedies, however, treat the patients
illness with a tiny dose of a similar (homeo-) remedy, designed to reproduce the
symptoms so that the systems self-healing mechanisms will be triggered.
So, too, the anxiety-provoking but insight-promoting interventions that are
the mainstay of Model 1 do just this. These homeopathic psychological
interventions promote health by offering the dysfunctional and symptomatic
system a small dose of anxiety-provoking reality, designed to throw the system
enough off balance that its innate ability to repair itself will become activated. As
long as the patients system is not destabilized too much, then the patients
underlying psychological resilience, coupled with ongoing support from the
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outside, will enable her adaptively to reconstitute at a higher level of functionality,

integration, and capacity. The patient will be even stronger for having dared to
confront what had seemed like impossibly difficult challenges indeed, stronger
at the broken places.
The challenge is in the form of a small dose of anxiety-provoking reality (to
which the patients attention, despite her reluctance, is repeatedly directed) and
the support is in the form of empathic resonance with how the therapist senses
the patient will defensively react to being challenged with a highlighting of what
she really does know to be true. Depending upon a multitude of factors, including
the strength of the patients resistance and the robustness of her resilience, the
dose of reality will be offered either gently or firmly or somewhere in-between.
The therapist will be ever-busy assessing the level of the patients anxiety, her
need for support, and her capacity to tolerate further challenge.
Triggering Self-Repair Mechanisms

Psychotherapeutic interventions that provide optimal challenge in
combination with ongoing support will be offered again and again, the net result
of which will be a triggering of the patients self-repair mechanisms just as
homeopathic remedies (if optimally challenging) will tap into the patients
intrinsic striving toward health and trigger her innate capacity to heal herself.
The interventions in the armamentarium of the Model 1 therapist are indeed
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specifically designed to tap into the patients internal reserves so that she can
evolve from dysfunctional defense to more functional adaptation as the need to
defend against anxiety-provoking realities by not dealing is transformed into the
capacity to adapt to them by confronting them head-on and doing whatever
processing and integrating needs to be done in order to work them through.
Indeed, the therapeutic work involves transforming defense into adaptation the
ever-evolving psychodynamic process.
The I Cant, You Can, and You Should Dynamic

Patients who are caught up in compulsive and unwitting re-enactments in
their lives (and in the treatment) demonstrate something that I call the I cant,
you can, and you should syndrome. Such a dynamic is both self-indulgent (by
virtue of the fact that it affords gratification of libido) and self-destructive (by
virtue of the fact that it affords relief of aggression). I believe that this threepronged dynamic is responsible for much of the stuckness and paralysis that
characterize a patients stance in life; furthermore, this self-defeating dynamic
creates many of the seemingly intractable therapeutic impasses Russells crunch
situations (2006) that will inevitably arise over the course of such a patients
treatment.
Such patients often have an underlying conviction (1) that they are so
damaged from way back that they truly cannot be held accountable now (the I
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cant portion of the dynamic); (2) that they will only get better by way of some
kind of input from the outside (the you can portion); and (3) that, bottom line,
they are therefore entitled to such input (the you should portion). The patient
will be able to get on with her life only once she has relinquished (1) her distorted
sense of herself as unable (I cant); (2) her illusory sense of her objects as able
(you can); and (3) her entitled sense that this is her due (you should).
Distortion (I cant); illusion (You can); and entitlement (You should).
Only once the patients (1) distorted sense of herself as irreparably damaged
from way back; (2) illusory sense of her objects as able to compensate her now for
the damage she sustained early on; and (3) entitled sense that this is her due have
been exposed to the light of day, worked through, and relinquished will she
become less conflicted and able to move forward in her life.
Until the oftentimes unconscious operation of such a dynamic within the
patient has been made explicit, she may well make little real progress. There may
be some external compliance on her part, but she will only be going through the
motions. It will only be as if she is getting better, because in truth, deep down, she
will not yet have relinquished her investment in seeing herself as a victim, as not
accountable, and as therefore entitled, still, to some kind of recompense.
I have developed three prototypical interventions the damaged-for-life
statement, the compensation statement, and the entitlement statement
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specifically designed to highlight the underlying distortions, illusions, and

entitlement to which patients cling as unconscious justification for their refusal to
take responsibility for their lives.
As long as the patient holds fast to her distorted sense of herself as unable
(which the damaged-for-life statement speaks to), her illusory sense of her objects
as able (which the compensation statement speaks to), and her entitled sense that
she should be provided for by those who are able because this is her due (which
the entitlement statement speaks to), she will remain entrenched in her selfdefeating pattern of waiting-for-Godot, hoping against hope that her objects will
ultimately relent and come through with provisions. In the meantime, she will
remain passive, paralyzed, a victim of circumstances beyond her control and
terribly stuck.
Damaged-for-Life Statements
In a damaged-for-life-and-therefore-not-responsible-now statement, the
therapist articulates what she perceives to be the patients convictions about her
own deficiencies and limitations, convictions that the patient, perhaps
unconsciously, uses to justify her refusal to take responsibility for her life in the
here-and-now. The therapist highlights the patients distorted perception of
herself as irreparably damaged as a result of early-on experiences and as
therefore unable to do anything now to correct for her psychological disabilities.
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Examples of damaged-for-life statements include the following:

Deep down inside you feel so damaged, because of the abuse you sustained
as a child, that you cannot imagine being able to do anything now to make your life
any better.
Because you feel that you got a bum deal as a kid, you cant imagine that
youll ever be able to compensate now for the damage that was done to you then.
You are so angry about all the bad luck youve had along the way that you
feel you have no choice but to give up.
Because you were treated so shabbily as a child, you feel handicapped now
in terms of your ability to get on with your life in any kind of self-respecting
fashion.
You feel so incapacitated, so impaired, so handicapped, that you have
trouble imagining how things could ever be any different.
A damaged-for-life statement, then, attempts to make explicit some of the
underlying distortions to which the patient clings as unconscious justification for
her unwillingness to take ownership of the choices she is continuously making in
her life.
Compensation Statements
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Furthermore, many patients feel, on some level, that they become full only
by way of input from the outside. They feel that because of early-on deprivation
and neglect, they are now limited in terms of their own resources. Because they
feel that there is nothing they themselves can do to better their circumstances,
their unconscious belief then becomes that they are forced to rely upon input from
the outside in the here-and-now in order to compensate for what was missed
early on.
In a compensation statement, the therapist calls attention to the patients
wish to be compensated now for damage sustained then, the patients wish to
have the difference made up to her.
Whereas a damaged-for-life statement highlights the fact of the patients
distortions (her negative misperceptions of herself as a helpless victim), a
compensation statement underlines the patients illusions (her positive
misperceptions of her objects as potential providers of the magic, the answers, the
love, the reassurance, the narcissistic supplies she will need in order to heal
herself, complete herself, and rectify the damage sustained early on).
Compensation statements contextualize these illusions as an understandable
response to early-on deprivation.
Parenthetically, if the therapist is in collusion with the patients illusion, that
is, if the therapist shares the patients illusory belief that the patient will get better
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only by way of input from the outside (namely, from the therapist), then it will be
much more difficult for the therapist to facilitate the patients grieving when the
patient is confronted with the inevitable disillusionment she will experience once
she comes to recognize the reality of the objects (the therapists) separateness
and immutability.
Examples of compensation statements include the following:
You are feeling that you have come to the end of what you can do on your
own and, at this point, are desperately wishing that somebody else would be
willing to step up to the plate in order to help you out.
At times like this, when you are feeling completely defeated, despairing, and
exhausted, you begin to feel that youll never, ever get better unless someone is
willing to help you out for a change.
When you are feeling desperate, as you are now, you find yourself wishing
that someone would understand and would do something to help you ease the
pain.
Eventually the patient must come to understand that what she is holding on
to is an illusion. By having her wish for sustenance from the outside highlighted,
the patient must eventually confront and grieve the truth, namely, that her
desire to be healed by way of external provision is illusion and not reality.
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Entitlement Statements
In an entitlement statement, the therapist makes explicit not only the
patients longing for input from the outside to complete herself but also her
entitled sense that it is her right to have someone make up the difference to her.
Because she feels so cheated from way back, she truly believes that she is now
entitled to compensation in the here-and-now to make up for the early-on
environmental failures.
Examples of entitlement statements include the following:
Because you feel that what you father did to you was so unfair, deep down
inside you harbor the conviction that the world now owes you.
Your mother never understood you and left you very much on your own,
and now you are feeling that unless someone is willing to go more than halfway,
youre simply not interested.
An entitlement statement not only highlights the fact of the patients
entitlement but also sometimes contextualizes it as a reaction to early-on
privation, deprivation, or insult at the hands of the parent.
Your father never supported you and was always critical; at this point, you
wont be satisfied until he can acknowledge that he was wrong and realize that he
owes you an apology.
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It is crucial that the patients often unconscious sense of entitlement be

recognized and made explicit. Many patients who have reached some kind of
impasse in either their therapy and/or their lives have arrived at that impasse
because, deep within their souls, they harbor the conviction that they have gone
not only as far as they can go but as far as they should have to go and that it is
now up to someone else to help out, to give them the answers, to provide for them.
They believe that since it was not their fault then, it should not have to be their
responsibility now.
Admittedly, it was not their fault then, but it is their responsibility now. And
if they dont do it, no one else will!
Again, the patients distorted sense of herself as so damaged from early on
that she is not now responsible, her illusory sense of her contemporary objects as
having the wherewithal to compensate her for the original damage, and her
entitled sense of being owed that compensation in the here-and-now must be
uncovered and named, so that the patient will ultimately be able to relinquish her
relentless hope and the relentless outrage that she experiences when the goodies
are not forthcoming after all.
In Model 1, which is more cognitive, the focus will be on helping the patient
overcome her resistance to acknowledging the truth about her distortions,
illusions, and entitlement.
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In sum: The patients underlying distortions, illusions, and entitlement must

be made explicit and the patient held accountable, which the therapist attempts to
do by way of damaged-for-life, compensation, and entitlement statements. As the
I cant, you can, and you should dynamic is worked through and relinquished,
the healthy forces that had been held in check by these defensive counterforces
will be freed up to provide the momentum for the patients forward movement.
Path-of-Least-Resistance Statements
I would next like to introduce the path-of-least-resistance statement, an
intervention that I have developed to illuminate another one of the patients
defenses, namely, her tendency to take the easy way out rather than to address an
underlying, more anxiety-provoking reality. In other words, this intervention
attempts to encourage the patient to observe her tendency to resort to thinking,
feeling, or doing something that involves not dealing rather than to confront and
deal with a sobering reality or stressful challenge.
As an example, a path-of-least-resistance statement might highlight the
patients choice to defend (for example, by clinging to a distorted sense of herself
as ever the victim and therefore not responsible for her life) instead of to confront
reality (for example, the fact that how her life unfolds is ultimately up to her). As
another example, a path-of-least-resistance statement might highlight the
patients choice to watch television all evening instead of doing her homework
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because she is afraid that no matter how hard she might study for her exam the
next day, it would never be good enough a recurring theme in her life (that no
matter how hard she might try, it would never be good enough). Or a path-ofleast-resistance statement might highlight the patients choice to break her diet
instead of sticking to a strict regimen of counting calories because she cannot
stand feeling deprived (an all-too-painful reminder of how she so often felt
growing up).
Like many of the psychotherapeutic interventions in the armamentarium of
the Model 1 therapist, the path-of-least-resistance statement represents an effort
to make explicit both the patients investment in maintaining her defenses and the
intolerably painful reality against which she is defending herself. It is particularly
useful when the therapist wants to highlight the illusions, the distortions, and the
entitlement to which the patient is holding on in order not to have to confront
certain intolerably painful truths about the self and the object.
A path-of-least-resistance statement is also particularly useful when the
therapists aim is to make the patient more aware of the choices she is ever busy
making between being present with the pain of her disappointment in the object
and absenting herself from that pain. In essence, the therapist is highlighting that
it is easier to defend against than to confront and grieve the pain of ones
disappointment. It is easier to defend against the pain of ones grief than to
process, integrate, and ultimately adapt to that pain.
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In essence, a path-of-least-resistance statement encourages or sometimes

forces the patient to take note of the fact that defending (by reacting without
much aforethought) is often the route she will unwittingly opt to go instead of
confronting a sobering reality or disillusioning truth about the object. In fact, until
the patient develops a keener awareness of the potential price she pays for
resorting to defense instead of dealing with reality, she will indeed often find
herself reacting defensively (and, therefore, dysfunctionally) to stressful
situations.
After all, it is easier to mobilize a dysfunctional defense (when made
anxious) than to confront and deal with a sobering reality, a stressful
challenge, a disillusioning truth, or a distressing affect. It is easier to be
dysfunctional than to take responsibility for being functional.
The format of a generic path-of-least-resistance statement is as follows:
Easier to defend than to acknowledge/confront the reality that
Easier not to deal than to deal with the underlying issue
Easier to think, feel, or do the thing that represents the easy way out than to think,
feel, or do the healthier (and harder) thing
Easier to take the easy way out than to confront and resolve the underlying
(conflictual) issue
Easier to defend by holding on to illusion/distortion/entitlement than to confront
and grieve the reality
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Its a matter of personal preference, but sometimes a path-of-leastresistance statement can begin with Its.
The format of such statements would be as follows:
Its easier to defend than to acknowledge/confront the reality that
Its easier not to deal than to deal with the underlying issue
The following are examples of path-of-least-resistance statements:

Its easier not to deal with how upset you are than to force yourself to stay
present with just how much pain you are in.
Its easier to indulge in overeating than to sit with the pain of your
disappointment about Jim.
Its easier simply to slam the door and leave than to rein in your anger and
try to talk about how upset youre feeling.
Its easier for you to pretend that it doesn't matter than to admit that it
tears your heart out that Kevin has now moved on to find someone new.
Its easier not to think about it much than to confront the reality that youve
paid a terrible price for having had a mother who was always so resentful of you
and your need for her to be your mother.
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Its easier to decide that its just too painful to think about than to sit with
the pain of your disappointment in Rick.
The following is the format of a path-of-least-resistance statement that
highlights how much easier it is to defend against an intolerably painful reality by
holding on to an illusion than to confront it:
Its easier to hold on to the illusion than to confront the reality...
Its easier to cling to the hope that than to confront and grieve the reality that
Its easier to cling to your hope than to confront the pain of your grief
The following are examples of such path-of-least-resistance statements

(which highlight the illusion to which the patient holds on in order not to have to
face the disillusioning truth about the object of her desire):
Its easier to keep hoping that maybe, some day, somehow, some way, your
father will understand just how much he has hurt you than to confront the
intolerably painful reality that he might well never be big enough actually to do
that.
Its easier to keep hoping that Eric will eventually learn that he needs to
treat you better than to face the truth that that might well never happen.
Its easier to hold on to the hope that Jane will change than to confront the
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reality that she probably never will.

Its easier to cling to the idea that maybe some day, somehow, some way,
your mother will accept you for who you are than to face the truth that that might
never happen, no matter what.
highlights how much easier it is to hold on to the distorted sense of oneself as a
helpless victim than to take responsibility for the unfolding of ones life:
Its easier to hold on to a distortion than to confront the reality
Its easier to cling to a distorted sense of yourself as a victim than to confront the
reality that

(which highlight the patients tendency to hold on to the distorted sense of herself
as a helpless victim rather than face the sobering reality that how her life unfolds
is up to her):
Its easier to hold on to the distorted sense of yourself as a helpless victim
than to recognize your responsibility for the unfolding of your life.
Its easier to cling to your distorted sense of yourself as damaged than to
confront the reality that its up to you to do with your life as you will.
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Its easier to experience yourself as having no accountability than to take

responsibility for your life.
Its easier to experience yourself as a victim than to take responsibility for
the choices you have made to live the way you do.
Its easier to experience yourself as having no choice than to confront the
reality of just how steep a price you have paid for refusing to live responsibly and
refusing to know the truth.
Its easier to experience yourself as having no choice than to recognize that
you do.
Its easier to experience yourself as justified in behaving as you do than to
confront the reality of just how costly such a stance has actually been.
Its easier to hold on to this distorted sense of yourself as the injured party
than to confront the reality of the price you pay for doing so.
Its easier to hold on to this distorted sense of others as having been abusive
to you than to confront the reality that you provoked it and, thereby, participated
in what actually happened.
Its easier to hold on to the distorted sense that you are a helpless victim
than to confront the reality that youre not.
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Its easier simply to hold on to the sense of yourself as a victim than to

confront the reality of your accountability.
Its easier simply to hold on to the sense of yourself as a victim than to
confront the reality of the price youve paid for being so self-destructive.
highlights how much easier it is to defend against feelings of being victimized by
lashing out than to deal with the hurt:
Its easier to lash out than to deal with the pain
Its easier to retaliate by lashing out than to confront the pain

(which highlight the patients tendency to victimize the object, or the self, by
lashing out against it than to confront and grieve the pain of her own grief
about how unfair it all is):
Its easier to think about ways to make him pay than to sit with your
feelings of devastation at his betrayal of you.
Its easier to punish her by withdrawing than to deal with how hurt you feel
by what she said.
Its easier to rail against the world than to take ownership of your own
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culpability.
Its easier to protest that its not fair than to confront and grieve the
pain of your disappointment that it would have turned out as it did.
Its easier to cry not fair than to let go of your sense of outrage and
mobilize your own resources so that you can move forward in your life.
Its easier to lash out at the world for being so unfair than to think about
how your actions might have provoked the response you got.
Conflict Statements
When patients are holding on to familiar but unhealthy defenses and are
reluctant to embrace less familiar but healthier adaptations, the psychodynamic
therapist can make liberal use of a psychological intervention that I have
developed and to which I refer as a conflict statement.
Conflict statements, one of the staples in the Model 1 therapists
armamentarium, are specifically designed to tease out underlying convergent
conflicts, that is, conflict within the patient between her voice of reality (which is
anxiety-provoking although ultimately insight- and, therefore, health-promoting)
and the defenses she mobilizes in an effort to silence that voice. Model 1
interventions are geared to fostering the patients observing (or reflecting) ego so
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that she can develop greater understanding and awareness of her internal conflict
between what she really does know and what she finds herself thinking, feeling,
and doing in order not to have to know. The aim of the conflict statement is
ultimately to promote enough detachment from the experience that the
experience can be reflected upon with compassion and without judgment for what
it is, namely, an effort to avoid dealing with certain intolerably painful realities of
which the patient really is aware but would wish she werent.
Conflict statements are also useful in Model 2 and Model 3; but, as noted
earlier, Model 2 (which is primarily affective and therefore more focused on what
is experience-near, not experience-distant) and Model 3 (which is primarily
relational and therefore more focused on the patients relational dynamics than
her internal dynamics) do not lend themselves quite as comfortably to the use of
statements that encourage the patient to step back from her experience in order
to gain perspective on both what she knows (by virtue of listening to her inner
voice of reality) and what she feels (by virtue of her need to deny that inner voice).
There are many ways to describe the convergent conflicts that assume
center stage in Model 1: (1) conflict between reality and defense; (2) conflict
between anxiety-provoking reality and anxiety-assuaging defense; (3) conflict
between reality-based forces and resistive counterforces; (4) conflict between
anxiety-provoking, reality-based forces and anxiety-assuaging, defensive
counterforces; (5) conflict between empowering forces and disempowering
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counterforces; (6) conflict between yes forces and no counterforces; (7) conflict
between health-promoting yes forces and health-disrupting no counterforces; (8)
conflict between anxiety-provoking but health-promoting forces and anxietyassuaging but health-disrupting counterforces; (9) conflict between the patients
awareness of the empowering forces within her and her awareness of the
disempowering counterforces; (10) conflict between the patients awareness of
the price she pays for refusing to let go of her dysfunctional defenses and her
awareness of the investment she has in holding on to them; (11) conflict between
the patients awareness of disillusioning realities about the object and her
awareness of the defensive need she has to deny those disillusioning realities; and
(12) conflict between the patients awareness of the work she must do to evolve to
a healthier place and her awareness of the reluctance she has to do that work to
name but a few!
Ultimately, however, and to operationalize things a bit, I believe we could
say that the convergent (neurotic) conflicts upon which the Model 1 therapist is
most focused are those between the patients knowledge of reality and her
experience of it.
How so? We had earlier noted that the neurotic conflict with which the
patient struggles can be conceptualized as the tension that exists within her
between reality and defense. Certainly reality (verifiable by a panel of 10,000
judges) informs objective knowledge; by the same token, defense (mobilized by a
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party of one and therefore lacking consensual validation) informs subjective

experience. As we shall see, the neurotic conflict with which the patient struggles
can also be conceptualized as the tension that exists within her between objective
knowledge and subjective experience.
As an example: If the object of a patients desire is married and has indicated
that he has no intention whatsoever of leaving his wife, then, at least on some
level, the patient has to know that, realistically, the object of her desire will never
truly be hers in the way that she would have wanted him to be. We could say that
reality (as verifiable by the panel of 10,000 judges) informs her recognition of the
fact that the object of her desire will never be available, that is, reality informs her
objective knowledge. And yet, despite her knowledge to the contrary, we might
well find that the patient continues to hold on to the unrealistic hope that perhaps,
were she but to try hard enough and suffer deeply enough, she might yet be able
to get him to leave his wife. And so the patients refusal to confront the reality of
his unavailability and her defensive need to cling to her relentless hope inform her
subjective experience.
On an objective level, the patient (along with the panel of 10,000 judges)
realizes that the object of her desire will never truly be hers; but, on a subjective
level, she (as a party of one without receptivity to input from the outside) finds
herself continuing to hope that maybe, some day, he will. She knows that the
object of her desire will never truly be hers, but she finds herself continuing to
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experience hope even so.

As another example: Let us imagine that the patient has been in treatment
for many years and has enjoyed a very positive relationship with her therapist.
Through thick and thin, the therapist has remained steadfast in his commitment to
the patient and to their work; and, consistently, the therapist has proven himself
to be indestructible, every time managing to negotiate successfully whatever
turbulence arises at their intimate edge. And yet, periodically, the patient finds
herself fearing that maybe shell be too much for her therapist and that maybe the
therapist will decide suddenly that their relationship should be terminated.
On an objective level, the patients knowledge of reality is that her therapist
would never do that (after all, he has never threatened to do that over the course
of all their time together); but, on a subjective level, the patients experience of
reality is that maybe her therapist (a stand-in for her father, who had abandoned
the family when the patient was age 3) would.
But whether the neurotic conflict jamming the patient up is described as
involving tension between reality and defense, tension between empowering
forces and disempowering forces, tension between yes energies and no energies,
or tension between objective knowledge and subjective experience, what all such
convergent conflicts have in common is internal tension between an anxietyprovoking force that, were it to be taken ownership of and its energies tamed,
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would provide the propulsive fuel for the patients forward movement and an
anxiety-assuaging (resistive) counterforce mobilized as a defensive reaction to
the original force that, were it to be analyzed and reworked, would become the
means by which the empowering energies, now tamer and more controllable,
could be harnessed and used to power constructive, more adaptive pursuits.
We are, of course, describing the ever-evolving psychodynamic process as an
evolutionary one whereby primitive defense is transformed into healthier
adaptation. Harkening back to Freuds metaphor, we are highlighting the
therapeutic action in Model 1 as involving the (id) horse becoming ever more
manageable and the (ego) rider becoming ever more adept at harnessing the
horses (now more controllable) power to move horse and rider forward and off
into the sunset. Simultaneously, the (id) horse is becoming tamer as the (ego)
rider is becoming ever more skilled, such that the synergy of a tamer id and a
stronger ego allows for the optimization of potential.
Before we move forward, I want to address a fine point. As you might well
have noticed, on the one hand, sometimes I speak to the conflict that exists
between reality and defense; on the other hand, sometimes I speak to the conflict
that exists between the patients knowledge of reality and her defense.
For example, sometimes I will be speaking to the conflict that exists
between, on the one hand, the reality of the price the patient pays for clinging to
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her relentless hope and, on the other hand, her defensive need to cling to that
hope even so, because confronting the truth would simply hurt too much. At other
times, however, I will be speaking to the conflict that exists between, on the one
hand, the patients awareness of the price she pays for clinging to her relentless
hope and, on the other hand, her defensive need to cling to that hope even so,
because confronting the truth would simply hurt too much.
As another example, sometimes I will be speaking to the conflict that exists
between, on the one hand, the reality of the patients anger (as evidenced,
perhaps, by her faster pulse and/or her accelerated respirations) and, on the other
hand, her defensive need to protest that she is not angry, just disappointed. At
other times, however, I will be speaking to the conflict that exists between, on the
one hand, the patients begrudging recognition of the reality that she is angry and,
on the other hand, her defensive need to protest that she is not angry, just
disappointed.
I am indirectly speaking here to the issue of how conscious the patient must
be of a sobering reality in order to warrant her mobilization of a defense. Does the
mere fact of the sobering reality suffice to trigger activation of the defense? Or
must it be the patients awareness of the sobering reality that is required to
trigger activation of the defense?
Closely related to this important question is the following: Is it the price paid
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(that is, the pain) that makes a defense ego-dystonic or is it the patients
knowledge of the pain that makes it ego-dystonic? By the same token, is it the
investment in (that is, the gain) that makes the defense ego-syntonic or is it the
patients knowledge of the gain that makes it ego-syntonic?
For that matter, is it the pain that makes a defense ego-dystonic or is it the
patients experience of the pain that makes it ego-dystonic? By the same token, is
it the gain that makes the defense ego-syntonic or is it the patients experience of
the gain that makes it ego-dystonic?
By way of an answer: Perhaps Im equivocating a bit here, but my own sense
is that sometimes the mere fact of the anxiety-provoking reality is enough to
trigger the defense. At other times, however, I believe that what is needed to
trigger the defense is for the patient to be aware of the anxiety-provoking reality.
Quite frankly, the context will usually be enough to determine whether the mere
fact of the reality or the patients conscious awareness of that reality is serving as
the trigger.
But whether it is the reality itself or the patients awareness of the reality
that activates the defense, the Model 1 therapist, in an effort to get the patient to
relinquish her attachment to the dysfunctional defense in favor of a more
functional adaptation, can use carefully formulated and individualized conflict
statements to make the patient ever more aware of both the price she pays for
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holding on to her dysfunction and her investment in clinging to the dysfunction

even so. And, as we know, once the patient has come to recognize that (1) it is she
who is responsible for having mobilized the defense, (2) she has a need for it, and
(3) she pays for price for refusing to let it go, the patient will ultimately be forced
to relinquish the unhealthy defense in favor of a healthier adaptation.
Again, the conflict that exists within the patient between reality and defense
is a convergent one because it speaks to the conflicted relationship that develops
between an anxiety-provoking reality and an anxiety-assuaging defense mobilized
in an effort to quell the anxiety generated by the presence of the reality. In
contradistinction to this is the divergent conflict that exists within the patient
between her positive cathexis of the dysfunctional defense (fueled as it is by her
investment in holding on to it) and her negative cathexis of the dysfunctional
defense (fueled as it is by the price she pays for holding on to it). The patients
attachment to her dysfunction will therefore be an ambivalent, or conflicted, one
because the dysfunction both costs her and benefits her.
Unlike the convergent conflict characterizing the relationship between
reality and defense (where an anxiety-assuaging counterforce is mobilized as a
reaction to the presence of an anxiety-provoking force), the divergent conflict
characterizing the relationship to the defense itself involves forces that are
independent of each other.
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But this is where it gets really interesting. By design, conflict statements

juxtapose two opposing forces: (1) an anxiety-provoking reality and (2) the
anxiety-assuaging defense mobilized as a reaction to the anxiety-provoking
reality.
Conflict statements do something else as well. More specifically, they
juxtapose the patients knowledge of reality (for example, her awareness of the
reality that she pays a price for holding on to the defense, even if doing so does
also assuage her anxiety) and her experience of reality (for example, her
investment in holding on to the defense, even if doing so does also create anxiety).
But conflict statements do not simply name the cost (you pay a price for abusing
drugs) and the benefit (doing drugs helps to numb the pain) two opposing
forces that are independent of each other. Conflict statements first name what the
patient knows is the cost of abusing drugs (the naming of which will make her
anxious) and then resonate with what the therapist senses is the patients
rationale for using drugs in the way that she does, the articulation of which will
ease the patients anxiety. You know that you pay a price for abusing drugs, but
doing drugs helps to numb the pain.
In essence, conflict statements convert what would otherwise have been a
divergent conflict between two independent forces, namely, both sides of the
patients conflicted attachment to the defense (pain and gain, cost and benefit, risk
and reward, price paid and investment in, negative cathexis and positive cathexis,
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cons and pros) into a convergent conflict between two forces that are no longer
independent of each other.
By way of a subtle sleight of hand, two forces that had been independent of
each other will now be linked by a conflict statement that first reminds the patient
of what she really does know to be the cost of holding on to her dysfunction and
then articulates, on the patients behalf, what the therapist has come to
understand is the benefit the patient experiences herself as deriving from clinging
to her dysfunction. The therapist is giving voice to what she senses will be the
patients knee-jerk (defensive) reaction to being confronted with the sobering
reality of the price the patient knows she is paying for refusing to let go of her
dysfunction.
Divergent conflict: You could choose to do drugs, or you could choose not to
do drugs.
Convergent conflict: You know that you pay a price for doing drugs, but
doing drugs helps to numb the pain.
With this latter intervention, the therapist is suggesting: You know that you
pay a price for doing drugs, but <it makes you so anxious to confront this reality
that you find yourself feeling the need to protest that> doing drugs helps to numb
the pain.
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By way of a thoughtfully formulated conflict statement, the patients

conflicted (ambivalent) attachment to her dysfunction which represents a
divergent conflict between two independent, equally (albeit oppositely) balanced
forces (namely, pain and gain) has been transformed into a convergent conflict
between the patients anxiety-provoking knowledge of the pain and her anxietyassuaging experience, mobilized in response to that knowledge, of the gain.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
The Model 1 therapist is intent upon illuminating the patients underlying
dynamics, which she will be able to do by way of a series of carefully formulated
conflict statements.
As we shall see, conflict statements encourage the patient to step back from
the immediacy of the moment in order to focus on the underlying forces and
counterforces within her that are tying up her energies and interfering with her
forward movement in life. Conflict statements prompt the patient to take note of
her internal process and to bear witness to it with compassion and without
judgment.
By calling the patients attention to both her own voice of reality (that is, to
what she herself, at least on some level, already knows) and the resistive
counterforces she mobilizes in an effort to silence that voice (that is, what she
then experiences because of her refusal to listen to her inner voice of reality),
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conflict statements are intended to heighten the patients awareness of her

internal dynamics (including, especially, the price she pays for refusing to pay
attention to her inner voice of truth and for persisting, instead, in her
dysfunctional choices). Over time and with repeated use, conflict statements will
advance the working-through process, resulting ultimately in transformation of
primitive defense into healthier adaptation, that is, resistance into awareness (or
insight).
Throughout this book, I have been highlighting the therapeutic task as one of
transforming defense into adaptation. In Model 1, the transformation, as we know,
is of resistance into awareness.
It is easy enough to appreciate that resistance is a defense, mobilized as a
reaction to the patients anxiety-provoking inner voice of reality.
But how is it that awareness is an adaptation?
Awareness is an adaptation because (as is true for all adaptations) it is
arrived at only over time and with effort! We do not have to work hard to become
aware of our strengths for example, that we are honest, that we are courageous,
that we are loving, that we are patient, or that we are compassionate. But we do
have to work hard to become aware of, and to take ownership of, our weaknesses
and limitations for example, that we still have unresolved oedipal feelings about
our mother, that we are intensely fearful of being abandoned, that underlying our
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polite exterior is tremendous rage, that we have insatiable hunger, or that we are
clingy and dependent. In other words, we have to work through our resistance to
acknowledging these painful truths about ourselves and our psychic scars in order
to get to a place of being able to work with them instead of against them (for
example, by denying them).
This is all by way of saying that awareness is an adaptation because, as is
true for all adaptations, it is arrived at only as a result of an evolutionary process.
More specifically, by way of the ever-evolving psychodynamic process, we arrive,
albeit begrudgingly, at awareness of our internal dynamics only by way of
evolving through cycles of destabilization (as our resistance is being challenged by
psychotherapeutic interventions that provoke anxiety) and restabilization at everhigher levels of awareness and nuanced understanding (as our underlying
resilience is being supported by psychotherapeutic interventions that ease anxiety
and promote insight).
In other words, awareness is an adaptation because it is the result of an
evolutionary journey through cycles of defensive collapse (in response to
therapeutic challenge) and adaptive reconstitution (in response to therapeutic
support), the net result of which is the transformation of unhealthy defense into
healthy adaptation as awareness supplants resistance.
As we know, conflict statements highlight both the health-promoting forces
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within the patient and the health-disrupting (resistive) counterforces within her
that are interfering with the harnessing of those growth-promoting energies. The
use of ever-evolving conflict statements is intended to facilitate the workingthrough process so that ultimately the empowering forces can be harnessed to
provide the propulsive fuel for forward movement at the same time that the
disempowering counterforces are being refashioned into healthier, more adaptive
ways of thinking, feeling, and doing.
The net result of both reining in the id and refashioning the ego will be the
channeling and redirecting of now more tamed, modified, and integrated energies
toward more worthy and realistic pursuits.
As we shall see, critically important will be the creation within the patient,
by way of a series of conflict statements that highlight both pain and gain, of ever
more tension tension that will ultimately make the patients dysfunctional
choices ever less ego-syntonic and ever more ego-dystonic. Again, as long as the
defense is more ego-syntonic than ego-dystonic, the patient will hold on to it; but
once the defense becomes more ego-dystonic than ego-syntonic (which will
happen as the patient becomes ever more aware of the price she is paying for
holding on to her dysfunction), the tension created within the patient by that
awareness will eventually provide the fulcrum of therapeutic change. The internal
tension (between the patients awareness of the price she is paying for refusing to
let go of her dysfunction and the benefit she is coming to understand that she
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derives from having it) can only be resolved once the patient relinquishes her
attachment to her dysfunction an attachment that, as we know, is intensely
ambivalent by virtue of the fact that it both benefits the patient and costs her.
By their very nature, conflict statements are intended to highlight the
conflict that exists within the patient between, on the one hand, anxiety-provoking
realities that the patient must eventually confront if she is ever to evolve to a
higher level of complex understanding and emotional maturity and, on the other
hand, anxiety-assuaging defenses that she has mobilized in an effort to avoid
confronting those discomfiting realities (that is, anxiety-assuaging defenses that
have come, over time, to characterize the patients dysfunctional stance in life).
Conflict statements are therefore specifically designed to tease out, on the
one hand, sobering realities, stressful challenges, painful truths, and distressing
affects, the impact of which the patient has not yet processed and integrated, and,
on the other hand, defenses that the patient has mobilized in an effort to avoid
facing those stressful realities. The first half of a conflict statement highlights
realities that are anxiety provoking but ultimately health promoting; the second
half of a conflict statement highlights defenses that are anxiety assuaging but
ultimately health disrupting.
More simply, conflict statements are designed to illuminate the patients
conflict between reality and defense; they make explicit the tension that exists
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within the patient between her knowledge of reality and the defenses she
mobilizes to protect herself against having to confront that knowledge (that is, her
resistance to knowing).
A conflict statement, in which the therapist first speaks to the patients
observing (or reflecting) ego by highlighting what the patient knows (which will
increase her anxiety) and then speaks to the patients experiencing ego by
resonating with what the patient feels (which will decrease her anxiety), has the
basic format of:
You know that, but your experience is that,
You know that, but you find yourself thinking that,
You know that, but you find yourself feeling that,
You know that, but you find yourself doing, or
You know that, but you tell yourself that
In other words, a conflict statement first addresses the patients knowledge

of reality (informed by her inner voice of reality) and then addresses her
experience of reality (informed by her defensive need to silence that inner voice).
It speaks to first the patients objective knowledge and then her subjective
experience first what the panel of 10,000 judges would be able to verify and then
what the patient finds herself thinking, feeling, and doing in an effort to deny what
she knows is real.
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Alternatively, but with the same intent, the therapist can offer any of the
following:
Even though (although) you know that, (nonetheless) your experience is that,
Even though (although) you know that, (nonetheless) you find yourself thinking
that,
Even though (although) you know that, (nonetheless) you find yourself feeling that,
Even though (although) you know that, (nonetheless) you find yourself doing, or
Even though (although) you know that, (nonetheless) you tell yourself that
First the therapist highlights the patients knowledge of reality (for the most
part informed by the present); then the therapist highlights the patients
experience of reality (for the most part informed by unresolved issues from the
past). The patients knowledge of reality has to do with what she really does know,
even though she might rather not have to acknowledge it. The patients experience
of reality has to do with what she is feeling in the here-and-now and will often be a
reflection of her unmastered experiences in the there-and-then (experiences that
were never fully processed, integrated, and made sense of at the time).
In the first part of a conflict statement, the therapist does not say If you are
ever to work through your fear of intimacy, you will have to let someone in;
rather, the therapist carefully frames her intervention as follows: You know that
if you are ever to work through your fear of intimacy, you will have to let someone
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in The therapist does not want to become the voice of reality for the patient;
rather, he wants to highlight what, at least on some level, the patient herself
already knows. The therapist therefore speaks to the patients own voice of reality
and does this by way of the three powerful words You know that
Among other things, You know that speaks to the issue of the patients
accountability for what she really does know. If the therapist, in a misguided
attempt to urge the patient forward, resorts simply to telling the patient what the
therapist knows and what the therapist therefore thinks the patient must do in
order to get better, not only does the therapist run the risk of forcing the patient
to become ever more entrenched in her defensive stance and therefore ever more
resistant, but she also robs the patient of the opportunity to take ownership of her
own desire to get better. In other words, the therapist does not want the conflict
to be played out in the space between patient and therapist, with the therapist
representing the healthy (adaptive) voice of yes and the patient representing the
unhealthy (defensive) voice of no. It is important therefore that in the first part of
a conflict statement the therapist highlight not what she knows but rather what
the patient knows.
By locating the conflict within the patient, the therapist is not only avoiding
the potential for the creation of conflict between patient and therapist but also
creating space for the patient to elaborate upon either the anxiety-provoking
realities that she really is beginning to face or her investment in holding on to the
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anxiety-assuaging defenses to which she clings in order not to have to go there. In

other words, in response to a conflict statement, the patient can go on to talk more
about either what she really does know, even though talking about it makes her
anxious, or what she finds herself thinking, feeling, or doing in order not to have to
experience too much anxiety.
In any event, by way of serial conflict statements that build upon the
patients response to the earlier ones, the patient is being given the opportunity to
explore both sides of her conflicted (ambivalent) attachment to her dysfunction so
that she can understand more about its underpinnings.
You know, deep in your heart, that your mother will never be the kind of
mother you would so desperately have wanted her to be, but you find yourself
holding on, even so, to the hope that perhaps someday, somehow, some way, were
you but to try hard enough, you might yet be able to make her change.
In response to this statement, the patient can elaborate upon either what she
really does know to be the truth about her mothers limitations or her relentless
hope that she might yet be able to get her mother to come through for her. In any
event, the patient is being forced neither to talk about things that make her
anxious nor to defend her choice to protect herself in the ways, albeit
dysfunctional, that she does.
Although you know that eventually you will need to confront and grieve
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the reality that your mother was never really there for you and that you wont get
better until you let go of your hope that eventually youll be able to make her
change, youre not quite ready to deal with all that because youre afraid you
might not survive the heartbreak and the despair you would feel were you to have
to face that devastatingly painful truth.
In the second part of a conflict statement, the therapist, by immersing herself
empathically in the patients experience, demonstrates to the patient her
understanding of what she senses the patient is feeling in response to having her
accountability challenged. The therapist does this by naming, in as nonjudgmental
and compassionate a fashion as possible, the defensive stance the patient appears
to resort to when made anxious.
By way of example, Youre coming to understand that your anger can put
people off, but you tell yourself that you have a right to be as angry as you want
because of how much you have had to suffer over the years. First the therapist
increases the patients anxiety by naming the patients knowledge of an
uncomfortable truth (Youre coming to understand that your anger can put
people off); then the therapist decreases the patients anxiety by resonating
empathically with the patients unconscious justification for being that way (but
you feel that you have a right to be as angry as you want because of how much you
have had to suffer over the years.)
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More generally, the therapist speaks first to what the patient knows and
then to what the patient finds herself reflexively feeling, thinking, doing, or telling
herself. Again, what the patient knows will certainly be anxiety-provoking but
ultimately insight- (and health-) promoting realities that must eventually be
confronted if the patient is ever to evolve to a higher level of mental and physical
well-being; what the patient finds herself feeling, thinking, doing, or telling herself
instead will be a story about the defensive posture she assumes when made
anxious.
You know that if you are ever to get on with your life, you will have to let go
of your conviction that your childhood scarred you for life, but its hard not to feel
like damaged goods when you grew up with a horribly abusive father who was
always calling you a loser. The therapist first highlights what the patient knows
to be real; in this situation, the therapist speaks to the therapeutic work she
believes the patient really does know she must do if she is ever to move beyond
the psychic scars she developed as a child. Then the therapist resonates
empathically with the defensive stance the therapist is coming to appreciate is the
stance the patient has assumed in order to avoid having to take responsibility for
her life. In essence, the therapist, with compassion and no judgment, is making
explicit the patients distorted perception of herself as damaged goods, a defensive
stance the patient uses as unconscious justification for remaining stuck in her life.
In the form of a conflict statement, therefore, the therapist first challenges,
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by directing the patients attention to what the patient really does know on some
level, even though the patient would rather not, and then supports, by coming
down on the side of what the patient finds herself feeling when confronted with
that knowledge.
You know that eventually, if you are ever to work through your fears of
intimacy, you will have to let someone in, but right now youre feeling that you
simply cannot afford to be that vulnerable. In the past, when you were vulnerable,
especially with your dad, you always got hurt.
The following is an almost universal conflict with which patients struggle,
namely, their wish for the object of their desire to be something it isnt. A hallmark
of maturity is the capacity to accept the reality of the object as it is, no longer
needing it to be something it isnt.
To the extent that the patient is still hoping that the object of her desire will
change, the following are anxiety-provoking challenges that the therapist might
offer the patient in an effort to encourage her to confront certain intolerably
painful realities: (1) truths that are simply too painful for the patient to
acknowledge (for example, the pain of her grief about disillusioning realities); (2)
the price the patient pays for holding on to her defenses (for example, chronic
frustration in the face of her relentless pursuit of the unattainable); and/or (3) the
work the patient must do in order to let go of her relentlessness (for example,
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grief work as she begins to confront disillusioning realities about the object of her
desire).
By the same token, the patients anxiety will be eased as the therapist comes
to appreciate, on ever-deeper levels, the patients need for her defenses and
supports her by articulating, on the patients behalf and in as nonjudgmental a
fashion as possible, the patients investment in holding on to her defenses (for
example, protection from the pain of her grief about those disillusioning realities).
The sobering realities and stressful challenges that are most usefully
addressed in the first half of a conflict statement include, but are not limited to,
such stressors as the following: (1) anxiety-provoking, uncomfortable, painful, or
distressing affects; (2) disillusioning truths about the object; (3) accountability for
the dysfunctional (and, at least initially, unconscious) choices the patient is
continuously making in a misguided attempt to protect herself; (4) the price she
pays for clinging to those dysfunctional choices; and (5) the therapeutic work she
must do in order to let go of those dysfunctional choices and adopt more adaptive
coping strategies.
The defenses that are most usefully addressed in the second half of a conflict
statement include all those (usually unconscious) defensive mechanisms like
denial, avoidance, compartmentalization, rationalization, self-justification,
pretending, ignoring, dismissal, refusal to acknowledge, refusal to confront, and
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refusal to accept utilized by the patient in an effort to avoid the anxiety she
would experience were she to let herself truly feel the full impact of her inner
voice of reality, namely, what she knows to be the various sobering realities in
both her inner and outer worlds. In essence, the defenses include everything the
patient thinks, feels, and does in an attempt to avoid confronting and grieving
intolerably painful realities that have been too much for her to process, integrate,
and adapt to. Again, when the patient is unable to adapt in response to challenge,
she defends.
The following conflict statements speak, first, to anxiety-provoking realities
and, then, to the defenses the patient mobilizes in an effort to protect herself
against having to confront those realities:
You know, deep down inside, that you are furious at Bob for having broken
your heart, but you tell yourself that he is doing the best he can and that you are
experiencing
not
so
much
anger
as
sadness.
(anxiety-provoking
affect/rationalization)
You know that Bob can sometimes be very cruel, but then you find yourself
remembering all those times when he was so very loving and all those precious
moments of deep, tender connection. (disillusioning truth about the object of
ones desire/rationalization)
You know that it really is up to you whether you keep holding on to Bob or
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you decide to let him go, but your experience is that you really dont have a choice
because you simply cant imagine a life without him. Being with Bob would ease
the pain of the loneliness from which you have suffered your entire life, and
without him in your life, you feel you have nothing to live for. (accountability for
dysfunctional choice/distorted sense of self as powerless)
You know, on some level, that you are consigning yourself to a lifetime of
chronic frustration and heartache as long as you cling to your hope that maybe
some day, somehow, some way, Bob will change his mind and come back to you,
but, in the moment, all you can think about is how good it had felt to be loved so
deeply and so passionately. (price paid for clinging to dysfunction/denial)
You know that you must eventually confront the reality that Tom will never
change his mind and come back to you, but, for now, you cannot imagine being
able to survive the pain you would feel were you to let yourself face that
unbearable truth. (work to be done in order to let go of dysfunction/refusal to
grieve)
The first half of a conflict statement can challenge the patient by highlighting
more than one sobering reality:
You know that until you come to understand why your first reaction to
being disappointed is to become angry, you will continue to have trouble in your
intimate relationships with men in which the therapist highlights both the work
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to be done (that is, coming to understand) and the price paid for clinging still to
her defensive anger as a self-protective reaction to disappointment (that is,
continuing to have trouble in her intimate relationships with men).
You know that because of the way your father mismanaged his finances
your family was left with feelings of insecurity and a sense of doom and that you
probably wont be able to feel in charge of your own life and finances until you
have worked through more of your feelings about how traumatizing it was for you
to grow up in that household... in which the therapist highlights both the price the
patient pays for her failure to master unresolved feelings from her childhood (that
is, her inability now to feel in charge of her life and finances) and the work the
patient must do in order to feel more in control (that is, processing and integrating
traumatizing experiences from her childhood).
A path-of-least-resistance statement (preceded by after all) can follow a
conflict statement. First a conflict statement: You know that you should be
studying for your exam and that youll feel terrible if you do poorly on it, but you
just cant seem to get yourself motivated right now. Then the path-of-leastresistance statement: After all, its easier to tell yourself that theres always
tomorrow than to force yourself to do something that you just dont feel like doing
right now even though you know that you might later regret your decision to
delay.
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In addition to the defenses referenced above (like denial, avoidance, selfjustification, pretending, ignoring, and refusal to acknowledge), other defenses
mobilized specifically to fend off disillusioning truths about reality include
illusions (positive misperceptions of reality), distortions (negative misperceptions
of reality), and entitlement (the refusal to take no for an answer). Illusions,
distortions, and entitlement all represent misperceptions of reality and are
resorted to by a patient desperate to protect herself against having to confront
certain intolerably painful realities about the objects limitations, separateness,
and immutability.
An example of defensive illusion is addressed with the following: but it
hurts so much to think that maybe Victor will never be willing to take ownership
of the part he plays in the fights the two of you have that you find yourself clinging
to the hope that maybe, if you try really hard to explain to him just how important
it is to you, he might someday understand and be willing to take more
responsibility for how provocative he can be.
An example of defensive distortion is addressed with the following: but
you cant imagine that any effort you might make would ever make any real
difference anyway because you feel so powerless and ineffective.
An example of defensive entitlement is addressed with the following: but
you are determined to make him admit that he is wrong and to apologize, and you
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wont stop fighting with him until he does.

Conflict statements encourage the patient to step back from the moment in
order to observe, with compassion and without judgment, not only her
dysfunctional thoughts but also her dysfunctional feelings and her dysfunctional
behaviors. Although the most cognitive of the three approaches, Model 1 is still a
story about challenging the patient to bear witness to, and take ownership of, any
defense she mobilizes (whether thought, feeling, or behavior) in an effort to avoid
the anxiety she experiences when confronted with the various sobering realities
to which she is being continuously exposed.
At the end of the day, Model 1, along with the conflict statements that are its
staple, is about enhancing the patients knowledge of her internal dynamics and
transforming anxiety-provoking resistance to taking ownership of those dynamics
into awareness of those dynamics such that the patient can use her ever-evolving
awareness and self-understanding to redirect her energies into more positive
channels and toward the pursuit of more realistic goals. Conflict statements
address whatever dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, or behaviors are interfering
with the patients momentum.
Throughout, the therapist is ever respectful of the patients defensive need
to maintain things as they are (no matter how dysfunctional) because the
therapist deeply appreciates that what is most comfortable for the patient will be
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that with which she is most familiar. Even the thought of change makes most
people anxious. And so it is that people feel compelled to do the same things over
and over again, driven to enact the same scenarios in their lives again and again
the repetition compulsion. The repetition is compulsive but usually unwitting, the
patient not fully recognizing that it is she who is choosing to play out, again and
again, unresolved childhood dramas in the hope of a better resolution this time.
Back and forth, back and forth, between engaging first the patients
observing (or reflecting) ego and then her experiencing ego naming first the
patients knowledge of reality and then resonating with her experience of it. First
challenging the patient, then supporting her. First increasing the patients anxiety
by highlighting, for example, a painful reality (You know that your mother will
never be the kind of mother you would so desperately have wanted her to be),
or the work to be done (You know that eventually you will need to confront and
grieve the reality that your mother was never really there for you), or the
price paid (and you know that you wont get better until you let go of your hope
that eventually youll be able to make her change). And then decreasing the
patients anxiety by resonating with her investment in maintaining the status quo
of things, no matter how dysfunctional (but youre not quite ready to deal with
all that because youre afraid that you might not survive the pain and the despair
you would feel were you to have to face that truth.).
You know that Justin ended up being a big disappointment to you, much as
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your dad, before that, had broken your heart by initially offering you the seductive
promise of a certain kind of deep connection only later to devastate you by failing
to deliver, but you are not yet convinced that Justin wont some day come to his
senses, see the light, and come back to you.
You know that it is ultimately up to you to decide what you want to do with
respect to losing those last 30 pounds, but, in the moment, even though you
recognize how self-sabotaging it is, youre just not sure that you have it in you to
go that extra mile. You are already feeling so deprived, you cant imagine having to
experience even further deprivation.
Back and forth, back and forth, between highlighting first the patients
capacity to reflect upon her internal process and then her rationale for
maintaining the dysfunctional status quo. First increasing the patients anxiety by
articulating, for example, a disillusioning truth about the object of her desire (You
know that Justin ended up being a big disappointment to you, much as your dad,
before that, had broken your heart by initially offering you the seductive promise
of a certain kind of deep connection only later to devastate you by failing to
deliver) or accountability for dysfunctional choices (You know that it is
ultimately up to you to decide what you want to do with respect to losing those
last 30 pounds). And then decreasing the patients anxiety by resonating with
her investment in maintaining the status quo of things (but you are not yet
convinced that Justin wont some day come to his senses, see the light, and come
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back to you) or (but, in the moment, even though you recognize how selfsabotaging it is, youre just not sure that you have it in you to go that extra mile.
You are already feeling so deprived, you cant imagine having to experience even
further deprivation).
By their very nature, conflict statements tease out and, over time, amplify
the tension that exists within the patient between, on the one hand, her awareness
of the anxiety-provoking realities that she must eventually confront if she is ever
to evolve to a higher level of awareness, acceptance, and accountability and, on the
other hand, anxiety-assuaging defenses that she has mobilized in an effort to avoid
confronting those painful realities.
You know that by clinging to your hope that someday Justin will come
through, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of chronic frustration and
heartbreak, but, in the moment, youre feeling that you need to be able to cling to
that hope or you wont have anything left.
You know that you must ultimately confront the reality that Justin is never
going to be available in the way that you would have wanted him to be, but you
are not quite prepared to accept that it would just hurt too much.
You know that you must someday confront and grieve the reality that
Justin is never coming back, but, for now, you cant imagine getting through each
day unless you can hold on to the hope that someday, somehow, some way he will
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see the light and come back.

You know that as long as you refuse to let go of Justin, you will be unable to
open your heart to anyone else, but, right now, none of that matters because all
you care about is having Justin back.
Again and again, the therapist articulates the conflict that exists within the
patient between the health-promoting positive forces that will provide the
propulsive fuel for her movement forward (even though, initially, the patients
awareness of them makes her anxious) and the health-disrupting negative
counterforces, (unconsciously) mobilized in response to the first set of forces, that
constitute the patients resistance to change.
Again, conflict statements are specifically designed to tease out, on the one
hand, sobering realities and stressful challenges with which the patient is
struggling and, on the other hand, the defenses she reflexively mobilizes in order
not to have to deal with the impact of those anxiety-provoking realities.
You know that your need for your children to understand your perspective
might be a bit unrealistic, but you tell yourself that you have a right to their
respect, and their forgiveness. (sobering reality/entitlement)
As noted earlier, the unspoken portion of a conflict statement has to do with
the patients reactive mobilization of a self-protective defense because being
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reminded of what she really does know has made her so anxious.
You know that your need for your children to understand your perspective
might be a bit unrealistic, but <it makes you so anxious to acknowledge this reality
that> you tell yourself that you have a right to their respect, and their
forgiveness. (sobering reality/entitlement)
The italicized words, which make explicit the connection between
acknowledgment of the anxiety-provoking reality and mobilization of the anxietyassuaging defense, can be included in a conflict statement, but are not necessary.
You know that theres work to be done if you really want to move ahead
with getting yourself a good job (completing your CV, gathering your references,
etc.), but when youre feeling like the failure your mother always said you were,
its hard to mobilize your resources to advance yourself. (work to be
done/distorted sense of self as a failure)
You know that theres work to be done if you really want to move ahead
with getting yourself a good job (completing your CV, gathering your references,
etc.), but when youre feeling like the failure your mother always said you were,
<it makes you so anxious that> its hard to mobilize your resources to advance
yourself. (work to be done/distorted sense of self as a failure)
You know that for you to have the experience of authentic connection with
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someone, you will need to be more open, but you hold back for fear of being
rejected, abandoned, hurt. Protected, yes, but never known, never seen. Safe, but
desperately alone. (accountability/distorted sense of others as hurtful and
abandoning)
You know that there is an element of choice in living your life in the selfdefeating ways that you do and that eventually you will need to understand why
you are so invested in sabotaging yourself, but, for now, you cannot imagine giving
up your various self-indulgences because they are what enable you to get through
each day. (accountability and work to be done/self-justification for dysfunctional
choices)
You know that you run the risk of doing permanent damage to your
already-diseased esophagus by taking additional medication, but there are times
when you find yourself feeling just so depressed, anxious, empty, helpless, and
alone, that you feel you have no choice but to take more of the drug so that you
can try to make it stop hurting so much inside. (price paid/distorted sense of self
as a victim)
You know what you would need to do in order to get yourself back on track,
but, for the life of you, you just cant seem to mobilize your resources to do it.
(accountability/rationalization)
You know that no matter what you do, it probably wont make any
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difference anyway because your wife has made it clear that she stopped loving
you years ago, but you find yourself still trying to please her, hoping that maybe,
this time, youll be able to get through to her, and then devastated when, yet again,
you end up being told that you will always be a disappointment to her. (sobering
reality/relentless hope)
You know that by smoking pot every day, you are missing out on all sorts of
opportunities to make your life more meaningful, but you are not yet prepared to
confront the internal demons that you attempt to keep in check by being high all
the time. (accountability and price paid/avoidance)
You desperately want to be able to free yourself from feeling so drawn to
Brian and know that youre wasting your life pining for him, but you just cant
seem to break free of his stranglehold. (price paid/distorted sense of self as
powerless)
You know that because of the way your father mismanaged his finances that
your family was left with feelings of insecurity and a sense of doom and that you
probably wont be able to feel in charge of your own life and finances until you
have worked through more of your feelings about how traumatizing it was for you
to grow up in that household, but the thought of actually getting back into the pain
of all that fills you with such a sense of futility that you find yourself feeling that, at
least for now, you simply cannot afford to go there. (price paid and work to be
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done/avoidance and rationalization)

You know that you if you are really serious about finding yourself a partner,
then you will need to put yourself out there in a way that you dont ordinarily, but
you find yourself holding back because you have an underlying conviction that no
matter what you might try, it wouldnt really make any difference anyway.
(accountability and work to be done/distorted sense of self as ineffective)
You know that youre going to be very lonely as long as you keep yourself so
isolated, but the thought of putting yourself out there is absolutely overwhelming
right now and terrifying. (price paid/avoidance)
You know that your need to keep what really matters to you hidden,
incommunicado, private, means that you will never really be able to have deep
connection or real intimacy with someone, but you have felt betrayed so many
times in the past that you are not sure you will ever dare to put yourself out there
again. (accountability and price paid/self-justification)
You know that you wont feel truly fulfilled until you are able to get your
long-anticipated manuscript completed, but you continue to struggle, fearing that
whatever you might write just wouldnt be good enough or capture well enough
the essence of what you are attempting to convey. (sobering reality/selfjustification)
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Although you know that Jane probably wont ever be able to support you in
the ways that you so desperately would want to be supported, nonetheless you
find yourself continuing to hope that she will and outraged when she doesnt.
(sobering reality/relentless hope and relentless outrage)
You know that as long as you keep getting bogged down in trying to take
care of everyone else you will have little energy left over to attend to your own
business, but its hard to extricate yourself because you were taught that taking
care of people was to be your role in life. (accountability and price paid/distorted
sense of self as mandated caregiver)
You know that you want desperately to get yourself healthier and that you
will therefore need to commit yourself to doing whatever you must in order to
pursue that path, but your sense of helplessness and the despair that never lets up
make it hard for you to get motivated. (accountability and work to be done/selfjustification)
You know that tomorrow you will regret having binged today, but, right
now, all you can think about is how deprived you feel and how good it would feel
to be able to have that ice cream sundae. (price paid/distorted sense of self as
deprived and entitled sense that one is therefore owed compensation)
Even though you know that shell probably never change and that shell
never want to have sex with you no matter how hard you try to please her, you
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find yourself feeling surprised when she says particularly unkind things that make
it clear how little regard she has for you. (disillusioning truth about the object of
ones desire/denial)
You know that someday you will have to forgive yourself for the mistakes
youve made, but, in the moment, all you can think about is how disappointed you
are in yourself. (accountability and work to be done/distorted sense of self as
always a disappointment)
You know that if you are ever to move forward in your life you will need to
figure out why you are constantly sabotaging yourself, but you dont want to have
to get back into all that right now and find yourself hoping that things will simply
get better. (price paid and work to be done/avoidance and relentless hope)
You want to be able to do something to make yourself feel better, but you
are feeling so damaged from way back that you cannot imagine ever being able to
do anything that would really make a difference. (sobering reality/distorted
sense of self as damaged goods)
Deep in your heart you know that probably what Victor gives you will never
be enough, but you tell yourself that maybe you could learn to live with what he
does do. (sobering reality/denial)
You know that there is stuff inside of you thats not very pretty and that
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someday you will need to expose it to the light of day so that you can better
understand why you keep doing the self-destructive things that you do, but, in the
moment, you cant imagine ever being able to do that. (work to be done and price
paid/avoidance)
You are finally letting yourself know that you would really love to be able to
find a life partner, but you are not entirely sure that you have the right to ask for
one. (anxiety-provoking reality/distorted sense of self as undeserving)
Even though you know that you should be so much kinder to yourself and
more forgiving, you find yourself feeling powerless to do anything differently.
(work to be done/distorted sense of self as powerless)
You find yourself getting a little bit panicked at the thought that your life
might continue to be this empty until the end, but you just cant imagine what you
could do to make it different. You feel that you are already doing as much as
anybody could possibly expect you to be doing. (sobering reality/distorted sense
of self as powerless)
You know that you will need to do something different if the direction in
which your life is going is ever to change, but you can feel yourself shutting down
when confronted with that sobering reality. (work to be done/defensive selfprotective retreat)
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You know that not everybody is going to have the same level of
thoughtfulness and sensitivity that you have; even so, whenever you are
confronted with yet another instance of someones thoughtlessness, you find
yourself feeling outraged and indignant. (disillusioning truth/defensive response
of outrage and self-righteousness)
Even though you know that you cant continue to pretend that you had
nothing to do with the mess that your life is now in, you find yourself desperately
wishing that you could just forget about all the mistakes youve made and move on
with a clean slate. (accountability/relentless hope and denial)
Accountability (Conflict) Statements.

As we know, before the patient can relinquish a defense, she must first take
ownership of the defense and then be able to understand both her investment in
holding on to it and the price she pays for refusing to let it go. But if she is ever to
relinquish her attachment to the dysfunctional defense, she must first be able to
hold herself accountable for the dysfunctional choices that she has made, and is
continuing to make, in her life. Obviously, she cannot choose to surrender her
dysfunction until she is able to recognize that it is she who has chosen to live as
she does!
Especially useful, therefore, will be a particular type of conflict statement
that highlights the patients internal conflict between, on the one hand, her
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recognition of her accountability for the choices she is continuously making about
how she lives her life and, on the other hand, her resistance to being held
accountable for such choices. Again, many of the patients choices will be
dysfunctional ones because what underlies those choices will be her defensive
need to protect herself from having to deal with the impact of certain stressful
challenges that have been simply too much for her to master.
As an example of a dysfunctional choice, consider the situation of a patient
who is entrenched in an unrelenting depression (because she has not yet dared to
confront and grieve the reality of her heartbreak about her fathers emotional
abusiveness) and clings to that depression as an excuse for not moving forward in
her life. The patients resistance to being held accountable for her choice to avoid
dealing with the impact of her fathers abusiveness on her life will obviously need
to be addressed if she is ever to move beyond her seemingly intractable
depression.
I refer to conflict statements that highlight first the patients accountability
for the choices she is making and then her resistance to acknowledging the
element of choice in how she is living as accountability statements. The format of
an accountability statement is the same as that of any other conflict statement,
except that the therapist specifically focuses her interpretive efforts on both the
patients accountability and her resistance to being held accountable.
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Of course, on some level, every conflict statement has, embedded within it, a
highlighting of the patients accountability for her life; but accountability
statements aim to highlight the volitional component in the patients choice to live
as she does.
You know that if your relationship with Victor is to survive, you will need to
take at least some responsibility for the part you play in the horrid fights that you
and he have, but you tell yourself that it isnt really your fault because if he werent
so doggone provocative, then you wouldnt have to be so reactive!
You know that a part of you wants desperately to be able to feel connected
to me and authentically engaged with me, but another part of you is so terrified at
the prospect of making yourself that vulnerable that you find yourself holding
back for fear of more heartbreak.
Even though you know that if your relationship with Victor is to survive you
will need to relent and let go of your investment in being right, in the moment of
upset and anger, all you can think about is making him admit that he was wrong.
Although you know that youre probably really angry at your mother for her
constant judging of you and finding fault with everything you did, in the moment,
you dont want to have to deal with whatever residual anger you might have from
those many years of being criticized and all you can really feel is
disappointment.
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Parenthetically, it is hoped that the therapists articulation, on the patients

behalf, of both what the patient really does know and what she finds herself
feeling (and doing) in order to avoid knowing will make the patient feel not only
held accountable but also held.
Both parts of a thoughtfully constructed accountability statement both the
therapists highlighting of what the patient does know to be the sobering truth
about the her own responsibility for the dysfunctional choices she is continuously
making and the therapists empathic resonating with the patients defensive
reactivity to the naming of that sobering truth will convey to the patient the
therapists deep understanding of, and appreciation for, the patients internal
struggle between clinging to the old and embracing the new. By their very design,
accountability statements first challenge, by reminding the patient that she is
ultimately responsible for the choices she is continuously making, and then
support, by resonating empathically with her (often unconscious) need to deny
such responsibility.
I am here reminded of a Saturday Night Live skit in which two guys are
sitting around a fire talking, and one says to the other: You know how when you
stick a poker in the fire and leave it in for a long time, it gets really, really hot? And
then you stick it in your eye, and it really, really hurts? I hate it when that
happens! I just hate it when that happens.
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It is a truism but, nonetheless, one worth repeating: People must be able to

accept responsibility for their lives and for the choices they are continuously
making before they can change the direction in which their lives are going. In
other words, the flip side of accountability is, of course, empowerment. The
patient cannot possibly become empowered until she is able to recognize that how
she is living her life is a story about choices she has made. Although many of those
choices may well be unconscious ones, they are nonetheless the patients
responsibility and the work of Model 1 is to render conscious those unconscious
(defensive) counterforces that are interfering with the patients progression in life
so that they can be refashioned into healthier adaptations.
Work-to-Be-Done (Conflict) Statements.

I refer to conflict statements that bring to light the conflict that exists within
the patient between what she knows she must do in order to evolve to a higher
level and what she finds herself feeling (and doing) instead as work-to-be-done
statements. By their very design, work-to-be-done statements first challenge, by
reminding the patient of the therapeutic work she knows, at least on some level,
that she must do in order to advance in her life, and then support, by resonating
empathically with the patients (often unconscious) need to protest that she is not
yet prepared to do that.
You know that if you are ever to get better, you will ultimately need to
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understand why you are so unrelentingly self-sabotaging and that the answer
might well have to do with working through some of the feelings you have about
how undermining your mother always was, but, in the moment, you are feeling so
overwhelmed and discouraged that you cant imagine ever being able to get back
into all of that now.
You know that you will continue to feel like a fraud as long as you keep
whats really going on inside of you a secret, but, for now, you feel you need to
keep the bad parts of yourself hidden because you cant imagine ever being loved
simply for who you are.
Although you know that you will need to do something different if you are
ever to advance yourself in your life, you just dont know where to start and find
yourself feeling confused about what you do and what you dont actually have
control over.
You know that eventually you will have to learn to let things roll off your
back more easily, but, in the moment, you find yourself filled with so much rage
inside that you cant imagine ever being able just to let things go.
You know that someday you will have to stop hiding behind that cynical,
sarcastic mask if you ever expect to be close to somebody, but, for now, you feel
you have to be tough and cant afford to let down your guard. Over time your heart
has been so badly broken that youre not sure you will ever let yourself love
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again.
Pain-Gain (Conflict) Statements.

By way of a series of conflict statements (and, most especially, accountability
and work-to-be-done statements), the therapist will be attempting to generate
tension within the patient between her adaptive capacity to hold herself
accountable for what she knows she must do in order to get on with her life and
her defensive need to avoid taking that responsibility.
Also within the therapists repertoire will be pain-gain statements that
juxtapose , on the one hand, what the patient really does know to be the price she
pays for having her maladaptive defenses and, on the other hand, how having
those defenses serves her. Pain-gain statements are specifically designed to
highlight, on the one hand, the patients dawning awareness of the price she is
paying for holding on to her maladaptive defenses (which will make her feel pain)
and, on the other hand, how having those defenses works for her (which will
enable her to understand the gain).
The format of a pain-gain statement is the same as that of any other conflict
statement, except that now the therapist focuses her interpretive efforts on both
the pain and the gain of having the dysfunctional defense, the stress and strain of
which will ultimately require the patient to do something in order to ease the
tension that is building up inside of her. In other words, by way of a series of pain-
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gain statements that juxtapose both the pain and the gain of living as the patient
does, the therapist is striving to generate sufficient tension within the patient that
the cognitive dissonance between the cost and the benefit of living as she does will
eventually prompt her to take some action which she can do by surrendering the
dysfunctional defense in order to restore internal order, balance, and harmony.
The therapist will alternately challenge by highlighting what the patient
really does know to be the price she pays for clinging so tenaciously to her
dysfunction and support by resonating empathically with what the therapist
senses is the patients need to be holding on so tightly to it. And the therapist does
this again and again alternately engaging, on the one hand, the patients
observing ego by appealing to her capacity to know and, on the other hand, the
patients experiencing ego by appealing to her need to deny that knowledge;
alternately increasing the patients anxiety by challenging and decreasing it by
supporting; alternately highlighting what the patient knows to be reality and
resonating empathically with her experience of reality.
Even though you know that you probably wont feel totally authentic,
present, or engaged until you have dared to expose the deepest, darkest parts of
your soul to Jane, you find yourself holding back for fear that were you to be that
vulnerable, Jane would lose interest and pull away from you.
You know that in the morning you will regret having cut your wrists, but,
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right now, all you can think about is how good it would feel to get that release.
Although you know that until you dare to deal with your internal demons
you will probably continue to feel like a hypocrite, the thought of exposing some of
the darkness inside is simply too terrifying and, for now, not worth it.
You know that you will be lonely until you can dare to trust again, but you
are feeling so tattered and bruised from previous efforts that you are not sure
youll be putting yourself out there again any time soon.
Repetitive use of these pain-gain statements, in conjunction with the other
kinds of conflict statements, will create more and more tension within the patient
between the pain and the gain of holding on to the dysfunctional defense
dissonance that will ultimately provide the impetus for the patient to relinquish
the defense.
Holding on to the dysfunction will become increasingly untenable as the
patient is being challenged, again and again, to remember what she knows is the
price she pays for clinging to her dysfunction (even as the therapist, in order not
to make the patient too anxious, is supporting the patient by resonating
empathically with her investment in having the dysfunction).
Inverted Conflict Statements
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Where once being reminded of how the dysfunction was serving her would
have decreased the patients anxiety, there will come a time when being
confronted with how invested she is in having the dysfunction will increase the
anxiety. By the same token, where once being reminded of how costly it was for
her to have the dysfunction would have increased her anxiety, there will come a
time when being confronted with how costly it would be for her were she to
continue to cling to her dysfunction will decrease the anxiety because that
knowledge will be consonant with her ever-evolving recognition of the fact that
she really does need to let go of her dysfunction.
At the point when being reminded of how invested she is in her dysfunction
is what the patient finds intolerable (and, by the same token, being confronted
with the price she pays for refusing to let go of her dysfunction is something she
can now tolerate), the therapist can introduce an inverted conflict statement. Such
a statement inverts the order: first the patients investment in holding on to the
defense is highlighted (because now it is this reminder of how invested she has
been in having the defense that makes her anxious) and then the price the patient
pays for refusing to let go of the defense is highlighted (because now it is the
reminder of just how costly it has been for her to cling to the defense that will
galvanize her to action, prompting her ultimately to relinquish the now anxietyprovoking defense).
As examples of inverted conflict statements:
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Instead of You know that by smoking pot everyday, you are missing out on
all sorts of opportunities to make your life more meaningful, but you are not yet
prepared to confront the internal demons that you attempt to keep in check by
being high all the time, the therapist offers the following: You had not felt
prepared to confront the internal demons that you were attempting to keep in
check by being high all the time, but you are beginning to recognize that by
smoking pot everyday, you are missing out on all sorts of opportunities to make
your life more meaningful.
Instead of You know that no matter what you do, it probably wont make
any difference anyway because your wife has made it clear that she stopped loving
you years ago, but you find yourself still trying to please her, hoping that maybe,
this time, youll be able to get through to her, and then youre devastated when,
yet again, you end up being told that you will always be a disappointment to her,
the therapist offers the following: You still try sometimes to please your wife in
the hope that shell fall back in love with you, but you are coming to see that no
matter what you do, it probably wont make any difference anyway because your
wife has been saying for a long time now that she stopped loving you years ago.
Instead of You know that youre going to be very lonely as long as you keep
yourself so isolated, but the thought of putting yourself out there is absolutely
overwhelming right now and terrifying, the therapist offers the following: The
thought of putting yourself out there is absolutely overwhelming and terrifying,
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but you are coming increasingly to appreciate that youre going to be very lonely
as long as you keep yourself so isolated.
Whereas a conflict statement highlights first the patients knowledge of
reality and then the defense, an inverted conflict statement highlights first the
defense and then the patients knowledge of reality.
The intent of an inverted conflict statement is to help the patient articulate
what she is becoming increasingly aware of, namely, that she is not doing herself
any favors by clinging so tenaciously to her dysfunction and that if she wants to
move forward in her life, then she really will need to take seriously some of the
painful realities, including sobering truths about the object of her desire, that she
had been refusing to see and take some action to free herself from the
stranglehold of her dysfunctional choices.
Where once holding on to the defense would have been ego-syntonic
(because it was easing the patients anxiety), there will come a time when letting
go of the defense will become ego-syntonic (because doing so will ease the
patients anxiety).
In essence, the therapeutic action in Model 1 is very much a story about
highlighting the discrepancy between what the patient knows to be real (most
especially, the price she pays for clinging to her defensive dysfunction) and what
she finds herself thinking, feeling, and doing in order not to have to know (which
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fuels her investment in holding on to her defensive dysfunction).

Relinquishing her attachment to the dysfunctional defense will be the way
the patient adapts to the challenge of being confronted with the cognitive
dissonance between her dawning recognition of just how costly it is for her to be
living as she does despite the benefit she derives from living that way. In
essence, as the patient comes to appreciate that the net cost of her dysfunction is
outweighing the net benefit, her surrendering the defense will constitute an
adaptation to the stress created by her awareness of that cognitive dissonance,
which will enable her to adopt healthier, more functional ways of thinking, feeling,
and doing, including more effective coping strategies.
Defense will effectively have been refashioned into an adaptation, that is,
resistance to recognizing ones internal process will have been refashioned into
awareness of ones internal process.
In sum, the patient will be able to let go of her dysfunction only when she
has worked through her ambivalent attachment to the dysfunction. We are
speaking, of course, to the adhesiveness of the id, that is, both the libidinal
attachment to the defense (which speaks to the benefit of having the defense) and
the aggressive attachment to the defense (which speaks to the cost of having the
defense). Only when the patient has worked through her ambivalence will she be
able to transform her need to defend into a capacity to adapt (that is, her
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resistance into awareness).
Stress and Strain as a Fulcrum for Therapeutic Change

With her finger ever on the pulse of the patients anxiety and the patients
capacity to tolerate further challenge, the therapist will therefore alternately
confront (by reminding the patient of what she really does know) and support (by
resonating with what the patient finds herself feeling and doing in order not to
have to know).
Moment by moment, the therapist can therefore titrate the level of the
patients anxiety, ever appreciating that just the right amount of anxiety (optimal
anxiety, optimal stress) created by just the right balance of challenge and
support will provide the impetus needed to advance the patients evolution to
ever-higher levels of integration and complex understanding.
With enough support, the patient will become more aware of how invested
she is in preserving her self-protective defenses how they have served her (in
essence, the gain). But, with enough challenge, the patient will be forced to
recognize how self-sabotaging her defenses have now become the price she has
paid (in essence, the pain).
As long as the gain is greater than the pain (that is, as long as the defenses
are more ego-syntonic than ego-dystonic) then the patient will maintain her
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defenses and remain entrenched.

Only when the pain becomes greater than the gain will the discrepancy
between the pain and the gain create the requisite strain stress and strain that
will then provide the impetus needed for the patient ultimately to surrender her
unhealthy defenses in favor of healthier adaptation, signaling the transformation
of defensive need into adaptive capacity (the defensive need to hold on into the
adaptive capacity to let go).
In essence, the therapeutic goal is to give the patient the experience of
cognitive and affective dissonance between her awareness of the investment she
has in maintaining her defenses and her awareness of just how costly her defenses
have become over time. This dissonance will then function as an optimal stressor
a fulcrum for therapeutic change by prompting first destabilization and then
restabilization at a higher level of awareness, acceptance, and accountability.
Consider the situation of a patient whose tendency is to withdraw
emotionally whenever she finds herself getting romantically close to a man. Her
fear of commitment (the result of sexual molestation by her stepfather, the impact
of which she has never fully processed and integrated) is such that she has been in
a number of relationships that have had real potential, but each time she has
either shut down emotionally or taken flight because of her fear that if she were to
get too close she would be taken advantage of and abused. But now the patient is
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in her late thirties and beginning to panic that maybe she will never find a man
whom she can really love and with whom she can start a family.
As the patient becomes more and more aware of the pain (that is, the price
she is paying for her defensive self-protective retreat) and this eventually
outweighs the gain (that is, the insulation she gets from having to deal with the
horror of her abusive stepfathers betrayal of her), then it becomes more and
more difficult for her to cling to her defensive retreat as her modus operandi. In
essence, the cognitive dissonance created by the tension within her between her
heightened awareness of the price she pays for having the defense and her everdiminishing investment in having the defense prompts gradual relinquishment of
the defense again, a defense that had once served her but that has long since
outlived its usefulness.
In sum: The therapeutic action in Model 1 can therefore be conceptualized as
focusing attention on the conflict that exists within the patient between, on the
one hand, anxiety-provoking but health-promoting forces that will ultimately
facilitate letting go (as the patient becomes ever more aware of the price paid for
the dysfunctional defense) and, on the other hand, anxiety-assuaging but healthdisrupting counterforces that are promoting holding on (as the patient becomes
ever more aware of her investment in the dysfunctional defense). The cognitive
dissonance between pain (which will make the defense ego-dystonic) and gain
(which will make it ego-syntonic) will provide the therapeutic leverage for a
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relinquishing of the defense.
Listening to Ones Inner Voice vs. Silencing It

The conflict that exists within the patient can be conceptualized as either
internal tension between health-promoting forces that will ultimately facilitate
letting go of dysfunction and health-disrupting counterforces that are fueling the
holding on to that dysfunction or, more generally, as internal tension between
health-promoting forces that will ultimately facilitate accountability for
dysfunction and attentiveness to ones inner voice of reality and health-disrupting
counterforces that are fueling resistance to accountability and a silencing of that
inner voice.
In other words, the therapeutic action can be conceptualized as focusing
attention on the conflict that exists within the patient between healthy letting go
and unhealthy holding on, between healthy accountability and unhealthy
resistance or healthy listening to ones inner voice of reality and unhealthy
quelling of that voice.
By way of a series of conflict statements, the therapist articulates the conflict
that exists within the patient between the health-promoting yes forces that will
provide the propulsive fuel for the patients movement forward and the healthdisrupting no forces, mobilized in response to the first set of forces, that constitute
the patients resistance to change. In essence, with conflict statements the
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therapist is highlighting first the patients refusal to let go and then her investment
in holding on, first the patients accountability for her choices and then her
resistance to taking ownership, first the patients adaptive capacity to attend to
her inner voice of truth and then her defensive need to silence it.
Optimal Stress as Providing Therapeutic Leverage

And, as we have been suggesting all along, the therapeutic process itself
(whether the classical interpretive perspective of Model 1, the deficiencycompensation perspective of Model 2, or the contemporary relational perspective
of Model 3) is all about transforming defense into adaptation. In essence, the
therapeutic process progresses by virtue of the fact that there will be optimal
stressors with which the patient must contend stressors that not only must be
managed but also can become the means by which the patient is able to evolve to a
higher level of awareness, acceptance, and accountability.
In other words, the patient will get better not just in spite of the stress but by
way of that stress. And it will be her innate striving toward health and her
intrinsic ability to self-heal in the face of optimal stressful challenge and
environmental perturbation that will enable her to evolve from dysfunctional to
functional as she evolves from defense to adaptation.
Holding On vs. Letting Go
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To review: Working through the patients investment in holding on and

resistance to letting go is an ongoing process that involves both challenging the
adhesiveness of the id (in order to tame, modify, and integrate its libidinal and
aggressive energies) and supporting the ego (in order to strengthen its regulatory
capacity by promoting awareness of its internal process and underlying
dynamics).
In Model 1, therefore, the therapeutic action involves expanding the
patients awareness of her internal dynamics, that is, knowledge of her internal
conflict between holding on and letting go of defenses that were mobilized in the
face of realities simply too much to be processed and integrated. It involves
increasing the patients awareness of the dissonance between holding on to her
defenses and letting them go the dissonance between holding on to her
defensive patterns (the dysfunctional status quo) and letting them go in order to
adopt more adaptive patterns, more functional ways of being, and healthier
coping strategies.
Consider a situation in which the patient is relentless in her pursuit of a man
who is clearly not all that interested in having a relationship with her. In this
instance, the therapeutic action in Model 1 will involve the cognitive dissonance
that develops once the patient comes to recognize that the price she pays for
holding on to her refusal to relent outweighs the benefit she derives from
persisting even so. More specifically, the patient must become aware of the fact
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that, by clinging to her relentless pursuit, she is able to avoid having to confront
and grieve the reality of the mans lack of romantic interest in her but that, by
refusing to relinquish her pursuit, she is also consigning herself to chronic
frustration and devastating heartbreak. The patient becomes ever more aware of
the fact that desperate unhappiness will be her cross to bear because of her
refusal to grieve and come to terms with certain immutable realities, unless she
can begin to face those painful realities and mourn them.
Of note is the fact that initially the patient is made more anxious at the
thought of having to let go than of being able to hold on. But our hope is that
ultimately, as the patient comes to appreciate ever more clearly the price she pays
for refusing to let go, it will make her more anxious to hold on than to let go.
Again, as long as the gain is greater than the pain, the patient will maintain
the defense and remain entrenched in her dysfunction. But once the pain becomes
greater than the gain, the stress and strain created by the tension within the
patient between the price she pays and the benefit she derives from holding on to
the defense will provide the impetus needed for the patient to relinquish the
dysfunctional defense.
Ultimately, as we have said previously, the goal is to transform the need to
hold on into the capacity to let go the defensive need to hold on into the adaptive
capacity to let go.
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Alternatively, we could say that the therapeutic goal is to transform the need
to deny accountability for ones choices into the capacity to take ownership of
those choices.
In both instances, the therapeutic action will involve the transformation of
unhealthy defense into healthier adaptation, dysfunctional defense into more
functional adaptation.
Neurotically Conflicted About Healthy Desire

In sum, the patient comes to us desperate to get better but deeply conflicted.
She knows that she cannot go on living the way she has been, but she is intensely
attached to her (dysfunctional) defenses defenses that had once enabled her to
survive but that now impede her movement forward.
In truth, the patient is conflicted about getting better, about changing, and
about letting go of her less healthy defenses in favor of more healthy adaptations.
She is not entirely committed to taking ownership of the fact that she is choosing
to live her life as she does and that she is therefore accountable for her often
dysfunctional choices.
Ultimately, the patient must become aware of both her investment in
holding on to her defensive stance in life and the price she pays for refusing to let
it go; that is, she must become aware of both her investment in holding on to her
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defenses and how costly such refusal to let go actually is. The ever-increasing
discord between her awareness of the cost and of the benefit will provide the
therapeutic leverage for her ultimately to let go and move on.
Consider the situation of a patient who withdraws whenever she feels
overwhelmed by the many stressors in her life. With exploration and analysis of
that defensive reaction, the patient comes to appreciate how retreating protects
her from having to deal with the discomfort occasioned by various anxietyprovoking situations in her life; she comes to understand that her defensive
retreat serves to insulate her from having to deal.
But, over time, the patient comes also to appreciate the down side of
retreating in this way. First of all, she becomes more and more aware of the fact
that her tendency to withdraw in the face of challenge speaks to an unconscious
identification with her alcoholic mother who was always retreating to the bottle, a
sobering insight that fills the patient with horror. Second of all, she becomes more
and more aware of the fact that her tendency to withdraw in the face of challenge
has meant that she herself is becoming increasingly isolated and lonely in her own
life.
Once the pain becomes greater than the gain, the stress and strain of that
discrepancy will provide the therapeutic impetus for the patient to relinquish her
attachment to the defense in favor of a more adaptive strategy. Letting go of the
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defense (her tendency to withdraw) will ease the tension she feels and allow for
the adoption of healthier, more functional coping strategies (a willingness to take
more risks and to put herself more out there).
Or consider the situation of a patient who clings to unrealistic expectations
about her narcissistic mothers ability to be empathic, supportive, and attuned to
her daughters experience. With exploration and analysis of the patients illusory
expectations about her mother, the patient comes to appreciate how holding on to
her relentless hope with respect to her mother serves to protect her from having
to confront the pain of her disappointment about the mothers very real
limitations, separateness, and immutability.
But, over time, the patient comes also to appreciate that her attachment to
the unrealistic hope she has with respect to her mothers emotional availability
means that she is consigning herself to a lifetime of chronic disappointment and
pain in relation to her mother because what shes wanting from her mother can
never be.
Only by working through the adhesiveness of the patients id to her
relentless hope that is, both the libidinal attachment to that defense (which
speaks to the benefit of having the unrealistic hope) and the aggressive
attachment to it (which speaks to the cost of having the unrealistic hope) will the
patient be able to relinquish her ambivalent attachment to illusory expectations
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about her mother and replace them with a more reality-based recognition that her
mother, a very damaged woman to be sure, is actually doing the best she can.
Again, once the pain becomes greater than the gain, the stress and strain of
that discrepancy will provide the therapeutic impetus for the patient to relinquish
her relentless hope in favor of more realistic expectations and a more realitybased assessment of her mothers capabilities. Letting go of her relentless hope
will ease the tension she experiences and enable her to adopt a healthier, more
reality-based acceptance of her mothers very real limitations.
The patients defense of relentless hope (which enabled her to disregard
certain disillusioning realities about the object of her infantile yearnings) becomes
transformed into more realistic hope and sober acceptance of the reality of the
mothers limitations, separateness, and immutability. The patient ends up sadder
perhaps, but wiser too.
You adapt to a difficult situation by creating a compromise solution. When
you adapt, you take reality into consideration. You dont get caught up in your
need for things to be different; rather, you take stock of what is and then behave
accordingly.
In another situation: From time to time, the patient sleeps through her
alarm, which means that, upon occasion, she has been late to important meetings.
Instead of feeling victimized by, and continuing to complain about, an alarm clock
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that doesnt work, she adapts to the situation by strategically placing her alarm
clock on the other side of the room so that she wont ever again be in the position
of sleeping through the alarm. If that doesnt work, then she uses two alarm
clocks, putting one on the other side of the room and the other in the next room!
She has replaced a defensive reaction (raging at the alarm clock for being
defective) with an adaptive response (confronting the reality that it is she who has
trouble getting up in the morning and that she should therefore do something to
ensure that she never again sleeps through an alarm).
The Wisdom of the Body

In essence, I am speaking here to the innate ability of the body in the face
of environmental challenge to make whatever adjustments it must in order to
maintain its dynamic equilibrium, that is, its homeostatic balance. Walter B.
Cannon (1932) referred to this self-righting (or self-correcting) ability of the living
system as the wisdom of the body.
The concept applies to both body and mind.
With respect to the body: If the living system has enough resilience and
there are adequate adaptation reserves, the living system will be able to adapt. In
fact, it is critically important for the health and vitality of the system that it be
able, in response to ongoing stressful challenges, to adapt and that it be able to
manage the impact of the myriad of environmental stressors to which it is being
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continuously exposed, in the process, evolving through cycles of defensive

collapse and adaptive reconstitution at ever-higher levels of integration and
functionality. Thats the good news.
But there are no free lunches. The bad news about adaptation will be the
significant damage sustained by the system over the long haul because of
depletion of the systems adaptation reserves (both its nutrient and its energetic
resources), the net result of which will be excess wear and tear on the system and
accelerated aging. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Paul will indeed get paid, but at
Peters expense.
In the physiological realm, a prime example of adaptation is collateralization.
The coronary arteries supply nutrients and oxygen to the myocardium (the heart
muscle). If they become blocked, the flow of blood becomes obstructed. To
compensate for the disrupted flow, the body, in its infinite wisdom, can develop
new (collateral) arteries to supply the heart with the nutrients and oxygen that it
needs to function. Although the price paid for such collateralization may be
suboptimal perfusion of the myocardium, this adaptive collateralization may
enable the patient to avert a potential myocardial infarction (heart attack).
As another example: When the thyroid is poisoned by environmental
pollutants and becomes compromised in its functioning, one of the ways the body
adapts is to redistribute circulatory flow, thereby reducing blood supply to the
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skin and other nonessential areas in favor of the bodys more essential systems
thus the thin fragile skin, dry brittle hair, and telltale loss of the outer third of the
eyebrows so typical of thyroid dysfunction.
Furthermore, if the thyroid is functioning suboptimally (and the metabolism
is therefore depressed), the adrenals may kick in to make up the difference by
upregulating their production of the stress hormone cortisol. The price paid,
however, will include eventual adrenal fatigue and short-term memory loss from
neuronal cell death in the hippocampus (a limbic structure in the brain that is
particularly vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of excessive and prolonged
cortisol secretion).
When the body is exposed to endocrine-disrupting, neurotoxic, and
carcinogenic toxins, it attempts to cope with this challenge by sequestering the
lipophilic (fat-loving) chemicals in its fat cells, the better to reduce oxidative stress
by keeping these electron-scavenging free radicals out of circulation. The bad
news, however, will be that the body is now loaded with toxic chemical substances
foreign to the body (often referred to as xenobiotics) that can potentially wreak
havoc on the system.
During intense exercise, when aerobic respiration has depleted the oxygen
supply, the body adapts by shifting from aerobic to anaerobic respiration, an
adaptation that will enable the cells to continue functioning, but their level of
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functioning will be suboptimal because of decreased production of adenosine

triphosphate (ATP).
Or when the internal environment of the body becomes too acidic (perhaps
secondary to the accumulation of metabolic waste products and toxicant
pollutants), the body may adapt by leaching calcium from its bones in an effort to
buffer the acidity. The good news will be restoration of the bodys acid-base
balance, which is necessary for optimal health and vitality; but the bad news will
be the potential for demineralization of the bones and development of
osteopenia/osteoporosis.
When the body is sleep deprived, one of the ways it responds is to activate
the sympathetic nervous system. This adaptation speaks to the bodys efforts to
compensate for its fatigue. The result will be the experience of being wired but
tired, the plight of so many in these modern stressful times. Here the good news
will be the bodys ability to continue functioning, but the bad news will be the
price paid in terms of depleting the bodys adaptation reserves (that is, its nutrient
and energetic resources) and gradually wearing out its regulatory systems.
As another (more humorous) example of adaptation: If you and your friend
are out hiking and unexpectedly encounter a bear in the woods, it is important
that you be able to outrun not the bear but your friend! The good news will be that
you live; the bad news will be that you lose your friend.
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In other words, in the face of environmental challenge, the system can either
react defensively (the less healthy alternative) or respond adaptively (the more
healthy alternative). Although defenses are more costly than are adaptations, in
both instances there will be some cost to the system. Again, there are no free
lunches. In the face of stress, the system must do something in order to go on
being; defenses enable it to survive but adaptations enable it to thrive.
With Adaptation There Is Always a Small Price Paid

If there is enough support from the outside (in the form of the therapists
empathic interventions) and the patient has enough internal resilience, then the
patient will be able to transform defense into adaptation, although always at some
cost. With awareness comes a certain sobriety; with acceptance comes a certain
sadness; and with accountability comes a certain burden. But this is a small price
to pay if the adaptation enables the patient to harness her resources and move
forward in her life no longer resistant, relentless, or re-enacting but now aware,
accepting, and accountable.
Repeated Juxtaposition of Pain with Gain

So the process of working through the patients attachment to her
dysfunction involves repeated juxtaposition of cost with benefit. Each time the
patient is reminded of what she really does know to be the price she pays for
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clinging to defenses that have long since outlived their usefulness, then, in order
to restore her balance, she must either redouble her defensive efforts to deny that
reality or move a step closer toward relinquishing her attachment to the
dysfunctional defense.
Over time, as the patient is confronted ever more directly with the price she
pays for choosing to live as she does, and her investment in having the
dysfunctional defense becomes ever more tenuous, it will become ever more
difficult for her to cling to something that is so clearly creating such internal
discord.
It is hoped that with enough support from a therapist who also appreciates
the patients investment in living as she does, the patient will ultimately be
prompted to relinquish the defense in order to restore her homeostatic
equilibrium. The wisdom of the body is such that the system will take action in
order to preserve its internal order and optimize its functionality. This selfcorrecting ability will enable the patient to evolve to ever-higher levels of
integration, balance, and maturity.
Constant juxtaposition of the pain and the gain will eventually become
intolerable for the patient and she will be forced to do something in order to
relieve the internal tension so created. Again, the wisdom of the body is such that
it cannot tolerate disequilibrium for extended periods of time and will therefore
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be prompted to take action in order to resolve the tension and restore the order.
Maintenance of Homeostatic Balance

We are speaking, of course, to the bodys self-righting (that is, selfcorrecting) mechanisms, whereby the body, in an ongoing fashion, is ever busy
adjusting itself in the face of challenge in an effort to maintain its homeostasis,
which is simply another way of describing the bodys innate capacity to heal itself
in the face of environmental stressors in essence, the bodys innate capacity to
cope with stress by adapting to it.
Conclusion
Whether the transformation is of resistance (a defense) into awareness of
painful truths about ones inner workings (an adaptation) or whether the
transformation is from cursing the darkness (a defense) to lighting a candle (an
adaptation), the process by which a less functional defense is transformed into a
more functional adaptation can best be described as one in which an acute injury
(in the form of optimally stressful psychotherapeutic interventions) is
superimposed upon a chronic injury, thereby tapping into the innate wisdom of
the body and its capacity to self-heal in the face of optimal challenge.
The process of working through the disruption occasioned by the therapists
optimally stressful input (in the form of interventions that provide just the right
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combination of destabilizing challenge and restabilizing support) will result

ultimately in a taming of the id and a strengthening of the ego. A tamer id will
provoke less anxiety in the ego and a stronger ego will have less need to defend
and greater capacity to adapt.
Furthermore, the now stronger, wiser, and more capable ego will be better
able to manage the id by re-directing the ids now tamer and better regulated
energies into more constructive channels.
As the id energies are harnessed and the ego empowered, the patients
neurotic conflictedness and obstructed progression through life will gradually
become transformed into mobilization of healthy ambition and actualization of
realizable potential.
In essence, as a result of working through resistances that had reined in both
awareness and actualization of potential, Freuds rider (a now stronger and more
empowered ego by virtue of its greater awareness of its inner workings) will be
more skilled at harnessing the power of the horse (a now tamer, better regulated
id) such that horse and rider will be able to move forward harmoniously and in
sync no longer in conflict but in collaboration.
Indeed, as the id is tamed and the ego strengthened (whether as a result of
the developmental process or the therapeutic process), what had once been an
adversarial relationship between wild horse and overwhelmed rider becomes a
Martha Stark M.D.
205
much more collaborative and harmonious one. And where once an overwhelmed
ego would have cursed the darkness to protest its feelings of frustration and
helplessness in the face of being thwarted, a now stronger ego adapts to the
darkness by lighting a candle.
206
References
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Phenomenology. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
Bollas, C. (1989). The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Cannon, W. B. (1932). The Wisdom of the Body. New York: Norton.
Ehrenberg, D. B. (1992). The Intimate Edge: Extending the Reach of Psychoanalytic Interaction. New
York: Norton.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books.
Freud, S. (1923). The ego and the id. Standard Edition 19:12-63.
_____. (1926). Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxieties. Standard Edition 20:75-174.
Hartmann, H. (1958). Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. Trans. D. Rapaport. New York:
International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1966). Forms and transformations of narcissism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic
Association 14(2):243-272.
Kris, A. O. (1985). Resistance in convergent and in divergent conflicts. Psychoanalytic Quarterly
54(4):537-568.
Lyons-Ruth, K. (1998). Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic
treatment. Infant Mental Health Journal 19(3):282-289.
MacLean, P. D. (1990). The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York:
Plenum.
Mitchell, S. (1988). Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Russell, P. (2006). The theory of the crunch. Smith College Studies in Social Work 76(1):9-21.
Selye, H. (1978). The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Stark, M. (1994a). Working with Resistance. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
_____. (1994b). A Primer on Working with Resistance. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
_____. (1999). Modes of Therapeutic Action: Enhancement of Knowledge, Provision of Experience, and
Engagement in Relationship. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
_____. (2008). Hormesis, adaptation, and the sandpile model. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 38(7):641644.
_____. (2012). The sandpile model: Optimal stress and hormesis. Dose Response 10(1):66-74.
_____. (2014). Optimal stress, psychological resilience, and the sandpile model. In S. Rattan & E. Le
Bourg (Eds.), Hormesis in Health and Disease (pp. 199-222). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press
(Taylor & Francis Group).
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Taming The Id and Strengthening The Ego - Martha Stark MD

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Taming

the Id and Strengthening the Ego

Copyright 2015 Martha Stark, MD

Dedicated to My Dear, Sweet Gunnar

Paul MacLeans Triune Brain

An Untamed Id and a Weak Ego

Dawning Awareness of Inner Workings

PART TWO Convergent Conflict

Conflict Between Health-Promoting Forces and Health-Disrupting

PART THREE Optimally Stressful Psychotherapeutic Interventions

Objective Knowledge vs. Subjective Experience

Inverted Conflict Statements

Maintenance of Homeostatic Balance

Martha Stark M.D.

eventual relinquishment of unhealthy, rigid, unevolved defenses in favor of

Martha Stark M.D.

Model 3, the intersubjective perspective of contemporary relational theory,

Martha Stark M.D.

In effect, by speaking to the presence of conflict within the patient between

Martha Stark M.D.

to begin with, thereby triggering the patients intrinsic ability to self-renew.

PART ONE Where Id Was, There Shall Ego Be

A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Therapeutic Action

Martha Stark M.D.

Model 1, enhancement of knowledge, is the interpretive perspective of

Where Defense Was, There Shall Adaptation Be

Martha Stark M.D.

relations theories emphasizing internal presence of bad (Model 3) always

The Complementarity of Defense and Adaptation

Martha Stark M.D.

From Defensive Reaction to Adaptive Response

Martha Stark M.D.

From defense to adaptation

Martha Stark M.D.

overwhelmed, broken, or defeated evolving as best it can in order to be able to

Processing and Integrating Stressful Experiences

Martha Stark M.D.

will be ever-better equipped to manage the myriad of environmental challenges to

translate Freuds time-honored, even if somewhat old school, theoretical

Freuds Horse and Rider

When Does the Ego Develop?

Martha Stark M.D.

Martha Stark M.D.

Martha Stark M.D.

into adaptive capacity, defense into adaptation.

Fairbairns Conceptualization of the Endopsychic Situation

Martha Stark M.D.

Martha Stark M.D.

Irreversible Deletion or Reversible Transformation?

Primitive and Healthy Self-Protective Mechanisms

Martha Stark M.D.

protective mechanisms (that is, adaptations). Also I will sometimes juxtapose

Therapeutic Agents of Change

(with the therapist, as empathic selfobject, focused on the patients affective

Paul MacLeans Triune Brain

Martha Stark M.D.

interdependent and interactive with one another. More specifically, MacLean

Evolving to a Higher Level of Adaptive Capacity

Optimally Stressful Therapeutic Interventions

Martha Stark M.D.

The Stress of Gain-Become-Pain, Good-Become-Bad, and Bad-Become-Good

been negatively invested).